PRO'CLITS, called the SUCCESSOR (Diadochos)—i.e., of Syrianus, as the head of the Athenian school—a celebrated Neoplatonist, was b. in Constantinople in 412. He was •iof Lycian origin, and received his first instruction at Xanthus, in Lycia. He then .studied at Alexandria under Anion Leonaras, Hero, and especially under Heliodorus, with whom he applied himself chiefly to Aristotelian and Platonic philosophy. From thence he went to Athens, where a certain Plutarch, a philosopher, and his daughter, Asclepigieneia, became the instructors—the latter a priestess of Eleusis, chiefly in theurgic mysteries. The vivid imagination and enthusiastic tempernient which in his childhood already had led him to believe in apparitions of :Minerva and Apollo, naturally convinced him when all the influences of the mysteries (q.v.) were brought to bear upon him, still more of his immediate and direct intercommunication with the gods; and dis tinctly believed himself to be one of the few chosen links of the Hermaic chain through which divine revelation reaches mankind. His soul had, he thought, once lived in Nicomachus the Pythagorean, and, like him, he had the power to command the elements to a certain extent, to produce rain, to temper the sun's heat, etc. The Orphic poems (q.v.), the writings of Hermes, and all that strangely mystical literature with which the age abounded, were to him the only source of true philosophy, and he considered thein .811 more or less in the light of divine revelations. That same cosmopolitan spirit in religious matters which pervaded Rome toward her end, had spread throughout all the -civilized "pagan" world of these days, and Proclus distinctly laid it down as an axiom, that a true philosopher must also be a hierophant of the whole world. Acquainted with all the creeds and rites of the ancient Pantheons of the different nations, he not only philosophized upon them in an allegorizing and symbolizing spirit, as many of his con temporaries did, but practiced all the ceremonies, however hard and painful. More -especially was the practice of fasting in honor of Egyptian deities, while, on the one hand, it fitted him more and more for his hallucinations and dreams of divine intercourse, on the other hand more than once endangered his life. Of an impulsive piety, and eager to win disciples from Christianity itself, he made himself obnoxious to the Christian authorities at Athens, who, in accordance with the spirit of religious intolerance acid fanaticism which then began to animate the new and successful religion against which Proclus waged constant war, banished him from this city. Allowed to return, he acted with somewhat more prudence and circumspection, and only allowed his most approved -disciples to take part in the nightly assemblies in which he propounded his doctrines. He died in 485, in his full vigor, and iu the entire possession of all his mental powers, for which he was no less remarkable than for his personal beauty and strength.
Respecting his system, some modern philosophers have exalted it to an extent which his own works would hardly seem to warrant. Victor Cousin holds that be has concentrated in it all the philosophical rays which emanated from the heads of the greatest thinkers of Greece, such as Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, etc. Proclus recog nizes a certain kind of unity of the Creator, or rather of the divine mind, of which he took the human to be a fragment; and he speaks of the "One" and the "First." The
human soul he considered wrapped up in various more or less dense veils, according to the degree of perfection attained; and he further assumed a certain sort of solidarity between the souls of those who naturally, or by certain immutable circumstances, were linked together, such as children and parents, rulers and subjects; and he carried this -doctrine so far as to assert, that the children must naturally participate in their parents' faults. Faith alone, he further held, was essential to the attainment of theurgy, which, -comprising mantic and supernatural inspiration, is preferable to all human wisdom; and in this lie chiefly differs from Plotinus (q. v.), with whose system he agrees in most other respects. He further tries to recognize and to fathom the original mysterious one by combination of figures, strongly reminding us of Gnosticism and the latter Kabbala. His way of developing the finite beings out of the infinite unit is also peculiar. A whole series of triads, at the head of each of which again stands a unit, goes in various gradations through the creation, the lower powers emanating from the higher, which are the thinking and creative ideas, etc. See PLOTINUS, GNOSTICS.
Of his manifold works, there have survived several hymns which by the true poetical and religious spirit which pervades them, stand out most favorably among the generally inane Orphic hymns. Of his astronomical and mathematical writings, there have sur vived a short summary of the chief theories of Hipparchus, Aristarchus, Claudius Ptole miens, and others, a work On the Heavenly Spheres, a commentary on Euclid, and a work—only known in a Latin translation—On the of the Eclipses of the Sun and Moon. His grammatical works consist of some commentaries on Homer, IIesiod, etc. The greater part of his writings is devoted to philosophy. These are partly commen taxies and paraphrases of Platonic dialogues, and partly the embodiments of his own ideas in a systematic form. We thus have a work—again weserved in Latin only—On Providence and Fate, On the Ten Doubts about Providence etc., On Platonic Theology, and -other minor works, extant in a more or less fragmentary form, and repeatedly edited. with translations and modern commentaries. The most important of his works, how -ever. is the Philosophical and Theological Institution, in which Proclus geometrically, as it were. evolves his doctrines by heading each of its chapters by a kind of propo .sition, which lie proceeds to demonstrate, appending corollaries in some instances Ile -chiefly treats in it of unity and multiplicity, on productive causes and effects, on the highest good, on that which suffices in itself, on immobility, perfection, eternity,. divinity, and intelligence; on the soul, etc. Next in importance stand his commen tarieson Plato's Tinacus, which, however, now only embraces a third of this dialogue, a similar commentary on. Plato's Parnienides, in seven books, on Gratylas, the First Alcibiades, and fragments on other Platonic writings. Some other works attributed to Proc]us have by modern investigators been pronounced to be spurious.