The Late Antique synthesis
Proclus
Head of the Platonic Academy at Athens, and the builder of perhaps the most elaborate system of late Neoplatonism.
- Dates
- 412 – 485
- Dating
- documented dates
- Born
- Constantinople
- Died
- Athens
The life
His philosophy was also a religious practice: he wrote hymns as well as systems.
Place in the tradition
His ordered chains of divine realities passed into Christian mysticism, Renaissance Platonism and later occult theories of correspondence and hierarchy.
the written record
Principal works
-
fifth century
Elements of Theology
A rigorously organised series of propositions mapping emanation from, and return toward, the first principle.
-
fifth century
Platonic Theology
A vast account of the hierarchy of divine realities found in Plato.
-
fifth century
Commentaries on Plato
On the Timaeus, Republic, Parmenides and others, transmitting elaborate cosmological and metaphysical systems to later thinkers.
-
fifth century
Hymns
Poetic devotional works, revealing that his philosophy was also religious practice.