Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography/Volume 3/Proclus

Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography/Volume 3 (1876)

Excerpted from The Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography, Volume 3, 1876 ed., page 738. (Ferrier's contributions to the Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography were for for the edition published 1857-1863. That this is the subsequent edition of 1876 is evidenced in its mentioning later dates—including that of Ferrier's death in 1864.)

2390022Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography/Volume 3 — PROCLUS1876James Frederick Ferrier

PROCLUS, the last of the Alexandrian philosophers who were in any way memorable, was born at Constantinople in 412. He studied philosophy, particularly that of Plato and Plotinus, first under Olympiodorus at Alexandria, and afterwards at Athens under Plutarch (not the biographer) and Syrianus. The neoplatonic philosophy had establishments at other places besides Alexandria, although this had been its cradle. Here it is known chiefly in connection with the name of Ammonius Saccas; Plotinus, and after him Porphyry, were the heads of the sect at Rome; Jamblichus propagated the philosophy, having contaminated it with many ridiculous corruptions, throughout Syria; and Proclus was its principal representative and expositor at Athens. Proclus was a voluminous writer. His philosophical and mathematical commentaries on Euclid's Elements, and his "Elements of Theology" have been translated by Thomas Taylor. He wrote a long commentary on the Timæus and other dialogues of Plato. Some years ago M. Cousin edited several of his treatises which till then had existed only in manuscript, prefixing to them suitable explanatory introductions. Proclus had no pretensions to originality. He added nothing to the philosophy of Plotinus (see Plotinus) and Plato but a greater degree of formality, which has the appearance, but not much of the reality, of strict logical exactitude. He died in 485.—J. F. F.