Proclus Works

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Overview

The works of Proclus are numerous and varied. Only a part has survived to our days. But what remains is imposing due to its volume and to its richness.

He touched every theme, since high metaphysics until the most concrete scientific problems. He used all styles, since the schematic and concise account until the plethoric dissertation.

The chronology of his works are uncertain and gave place to controversies without end. The best way is to classify his works following their substance.

Commentaries on Plato

Proclus has been before everything a commentator of Plato, whose dialogues are for him as Holy Scriptures. It is over its exegesis that he built his own philosophy. To some one he explains that it's difficult to differentiate his own thoughts from the ones by Plato. Anyway a material difference exists between his platonic writings and his own original works.

Two commentaries on Plato have at the eyes of Proclus a special importance because they have the fundamental texts of the philosopher. They are Parmenides and Timaeus, where are exposed on one hand the principles of being and on the other the principles of nature.

Proclus consecrated to both commentaries long developments, minutes, where he explains successively each remark. But his commentaries have arrived to us incomplete. Each one has no more them one third of the entire work.

Other commentaries, also fragmented in different proportions, are consecrated to the first Alcibiades, to Cratylus and to the The Republic.

The commentaries on Cratylus and on The Republic are reflections written on the margins of the original text.

The commentary on Cratylus seems to be extracted from the papers of Proclus by a disciple.

A certain number of commentaries are now lost. Proclus wrote on Phaedo, on Gorgias, on Phaedrus, on Theaetetus and on Philebus, on The Sophist, on the discourse of Diotima on The Banquet.

It is probable that he wrote on Crito and the second Alcibiades. It is much more uncertain if he wrote on Pythagoras and on The Laws.

About the date of his writings all we know with certainty is that his explanations on Timaeus was written by him at age 28. It's what Marinus tells us.

To the platonic commentaries we must add those consecrated to the moral, political and economical works by Aristotle and Xenophon.

The editions of his works in modern times ascend to the 16th century, with the one by Bale near 1540. In English, Thomas Taylor has made his translation around 1820.

Non original works

Between the non original works, the commentaries on The Chaldean Oracles has survived only as small extracts, edited by Jahn in 1891.

They are related with the texts about religious symbolism of theurgic inspiration today disappeared, with the only exception of a small piece concerning sacrifice and magic, edited in 1516 at Venice.

Another fragment can be added, transmitted to us under the title of De arcanis naturae in a work published in 1607 at Paris.

Also vanished are a commentary on the Gods of Homer, another one on Works and Days by Hesiod, a book on the Mother of the Gods and an introduction to Theurgy.

Marinus tells us he had asked him a complete commentary on the Orphic Poems. Proclus answered him he was prevented to do it due to some ill-omened dreams.

Philosophic works

The properly philosophical works can be divided into writings about Theology and opuscules concerning moral questions.

The Elements of Theology is a systematic exposition composed of 211 propositions rigorously linked and demonstrated of Proclus' metaphysic. It's an abstract compression of his thought, which may be recommended due to its logical order and to the absence of any digression. Usually it's considered to be a work of youth, or from an early date, but without being possible to give it a date. In any case it gives testimony of incontestable maturity. It has been translated in English in 1933 by Dodds, with a highly valuable critical study.

The Platonic Theology results of the effort to take from the work of Plato, specially from Parmenides, the elements of an original structure where is expressed all the philosophy of Proclus. It is the most voluminous and the most massive of all works by Proclus. It is generally attributed to the later years of his life. Thomas Taylor translated this work around 1820.

Concerning moral in its relations with Theology, Proclus wrote three small treaties which survived in a latin translation. They are entitled De decem dubitationibus circa Providentiam, De providentia et fato et eo quod in nobis (ad Theodorum mechanicium) and De malorum substantia. Dodds qualifies them as works of circumstance. The second one is effectively addressed to a friend of Proclus who had put to him some questions. It seems to have been written in the maturity of the author, before the Platonic Theology.

Proclus also wrote a text against the Christians entitled Eighteen arguments against the Christians, preserved in the refutation by Jean Philipon published in 1535 at Venice, and translated in Latin by Mahotius in 1557 at Lyon.

Scientific works

The scientific works by Proclus are about mathematics, physics and astronomy.

The commentary on the first book by Euclid is more then an exegetical work, because Proclus develops there ideas of Platonic inspiration, but which are proper to him, about the Intelligible, the Soul and about the Extension. His mathematical explanations are largely based on the ones by Geminus, a scholar from the first century BCE.

The Institutio physica concerns movement. It is not a commentary on Aristotle, but a series of definitions ordered, just as only he knows how to do. This work usually is attributed to the youth of Proclus. According to some it is even precedent to the Elements of Theology.

The resumed exposition on the astronomical expositions is a book where Proclus, addressing himself to friends who questioned him, synthesizes the knowledge of his time about the celestial mechanism, in accordance with Hipparcus and Ptolemy. He also wrote a paraphrase on the four books by Ptolemy. To this one we must add a treaty on the Sphere, also about the problems of the cosmos which is a partial copy of Introduction to the phenomenons by Geminus. He also wrote an opuscule on the Astrolabe.

Linguistics, grammar and poetical works

We have from him fragments of a Chrestomathia grammatica and a Chrestomathia Poetica, and a work entitled by a 16th century editor as De conscribendis epistolis.

Proclus composed a certain number of poems of philosophical and religious inspiration, which are animated with a large breath.

On the whole

On the whole, the encyclopedic production of Proclus who was called correctly "the Aristotle of the Alexandrine mysticism" testifies an impressive intellectual fecundity. Its substance is reach, it resumes and crowns the efforts of several centuries.

His writing knows how to be elegant and pure. The structure of his prose is generally of sterling qualities; the one of his verses is always. There is in him the artist and at the same time the philosopher and the wise man.

See also

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