The six books of Proclus, the Platonic successor, on the theology of Plato (vol. 2 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 p — Plato — John Shaqi
The six books of Proclus, the Platonic successor, on the theology of Plato (vol. 2 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 p
Plato · en
In the first place therefore, let us survey how Plato, in the same
manner as Orpheus, considers the sun to be in a certain respect the
same as Apollo, and how he venerates the communion of these Gods.
For Orpheus clearly says that the sun is the same with Apollo, and
asserts this (as I may say) through the whole of his poetry. But the
Athenian guest indicates this through the union of these divinities,
constructing a common temple to Apollo and the sun, and at one time
making mention of both, but at another, of one only, in consequence
of their subsisting according to one union. But he says as follows:
“Every year after the conversions of the sun from summer to winter,
it is requisite that the whole city should assemble in the temple
common to the sun and Apollo, consecrating three of the citizens to the
God.” In these words therefore, speaking in common about both these
divinities, that it is fit there should be a temple of Apollo and the
sun, into which it is necessary the whole city should assemble, after
the summer solstice, he discourses in what follows about both, as if
they were one, adding, that three of the citizens should be consecrated
to the God; thus recurring from the division to the union of both.
But elsewhere, he latently indicates the communion of them with each
other. And again, in what follows, at one time he says that the
citizens [consecrated to the God] should offer common first fruits to
the sun and Apollo, but at another to the sun alone, in consequence
of Apollo being in the sun. According to Plato therefore, there is a
kindred conjunction of these divinities, a communion of powers, and an
ineffable union.
Socrates also in the Cratylus, proposing to discover the essence of
Apollo from his appellation, ascends to the simplicity of his hyparxis,
to his power of unfolding truth into light, and to his intellect
which is the cause of knowledge, thus sufficiently indicating to
us the unmultiplied, simple, and uniform nature of the God. But in
the [6th book of the] Republic, arranging the sun analogous to _the
good_, and sensible light, to the light proceeding from _the good_
to the intelligible, and calling the light which is present to the
intelligible from _the good_, truth, connecting likewise intellect and
the intelligible with each other, he evidently collects together these
two series, I mean the Apolloniacal and the solar. For each of these
is analogous to _the good_.[26] But sensible light, and intellectual
truth, are analogous to superessential light. And these three lights
are successive to each other, viz. the divine, the intellectual, and
sensible light; the last indeed pervading to sensibles from the visible
sun; but the second extending from Apollo to intellectuals; and the
first, from _the good_ to intelligibles.