Elements of Theology

Elements of Theology

Author	Proclus
Original title	Στοιχείωσις θεολογική
Illustrator
Country	Roman Empire
Language	Greek
Subject	Philosophy
Published	400s A.D.
Pages

The Elements of Theology is a treatise by Proclus. It contains 211 propositions.

Propositions

A. Of the One and the Many

• Prop. 1. Every manifold in some way participates unity.
• Prop. 2. All that participates unity is both one and not-one.
• Prop. 3. All that becomes one does so by participation of unity.
• Prop. 4. All that is unified is other than the One itself.
• Prop. 5. Every manifold is posterior to the One.
• Prop. 6. Every manifold is composed either of unified groups or of henads (units).

B. Of Causes

• Prop. 7. Every productive cause is superior to that which it produces.
• Prop. 8. All that in any way participates the Good is subordinate to the primal Good which is nothing else but good.
• Prop. 9. All that is self-sufficient either in its existence or in its activity is superior to what is not self-sufficient but dependent upon another existence which is the cause of its completeness.
• Prop. 10. All that is self-sufficient is inferior to the unqualified Good.
• Prop. 11. All that exists proceeds from a single first cause.
• Prop. 12. All that exists has the Good as its principium and first cause.
• Prop. 13. Every good tends to unify what participates it; and all unification is a good; and the Good is identical with the One.

C. Of the Grades of Reality

• Prop. 14. All that exists is either moved or unmoved; and if the former, either by itself or by another, that is, either intrinsically or extrinsically: so that everything is unmoved, intrinsically moved, or extrinsically moved.
• Prop. 15. All that is capable of reverting upon itself is incorporeal.
• Prop. 16. All that is capable of reverting upon itself has an existence separable from all body.
• Prop. 17. Everything originally self-moving is capable of reversion upon itself.
• Prop. 18. Everything which by its existence bestows a character on others itself primitively possesses that character which it communicates to the recipients.
• Prop. 19. Everything which primitively inheres in any natural class of beings is present in all the members of that class alike, and in virtue of their common definition.
• Prop. 20. Beyond all bodies is the soul's essence; beyond all souls, the intellective principle; and beyond all intellective substances, the One.
• Prop. 21. Every order has its beginning in a monad and proceeds to a manifold co-ordinate therewith; and the manifold in any order may be carried back to a single monad.
• Prop. 22. All that exists primitively and originally in each order is one and not two or more than two, but unique.
• Prop. 23. All that is unparticipated produces out of itself the participated; and all participated substances are linked by upward tension to existences not participated.
• Prop. 24. All that participates is inferior to the participated, and this latter to the unparticipated.

D. Of Procession and Reversion

• Prop. 25. Whatever is complete proceeds to generate those things which it is capable of producing, imitating in its turn the one originative principle of the universe.
• Prop. 26. Every productive cause produces the next and all subsequent principles while itself remaining steadfast.
• Prop. 27. Every producing cause is productive of secondary existences because of its completeness and superfluity of potency.
• Prop. 28. Every producing cause brings into existence things like to itself before the unlike.
• Prop. 29. All procession is accomplished through a likeness of the secondary to the primary.
• Prop. 30. All that is immediately produced by any principle both remains in the producing cause and proceeds from it.
• Prop. 31. All that proceeds from any principle reverts in respect of its being upon that from which it proceeds.
• Prop. 32. All reversion is accomplished through a likeness of the reverting terms to the goal of reversion.
• Prop. 33. All that proceeds from any principle and reverts upon it has a cyclic activity.
• Prop. 34. Everything whose nature it is to revert reverts upon that from which it derived the procession of its own substance.
• Prop. 35. Every effect remains in its cause, proceeds from it, and reverts upon it.
• Prop. 36. In all that multiplies itself by procession, those terms which arise first are more perfect than the second, and these than the next order, and so throughout the series.
• Prop. 37. In all that is generated by reversion the first terms are less perfect than the second, and these than the next order; and the last are the most perfect.
• Prop. 38. All that proceeds from a plurality of causes passes through as many terms in its reversion as in its procession; and all reversion is through the same terms as the corresponding procession.
• Prop. 39. All that exists reverts either in respect of its existence only, or in respect of its life, or by the way of knowledge also.

E. Of the Self-Constituted

• Prop. 40. All that proceeds from another cause is subordinate to principles which get their substance from themselves and have a self-constituted existence.
• Prop. 41. All that has its existence in another is produced entirely from another; but all that exists in itself is self-constituted.
• Prop. 42. All that is self-constituted is capable of reversion upon itself.
• Prop. 43. All that is capable of reversion upon itself is self-constituted.
• Prop. 44. All that is capable in its activity of reversion upon itself is also reverted upon itself in respect of its existence.
• Prop. 45. All that is self-constituted is without temporal origin.
• Prop. 46. All that is self-constituted is imperishable.
• Prop. 47. All that is self-constituted is without parts and simple.
• Prop. 48. All that is not perpetual either is composite or has its subsistence in another.
• Prop. 49. All that is self-constituted is perpetual.
• Prop. 50. All that is measured by time either in its existence or in its activity is in process of coming-to-be in that respect in which it is measured by time.
• Prop. 51. All that is self-constituted transcends the things which are measured by time in respect of their existence.

F. Of Time and Eternity

• Prop. 52. All that is eternal is a simultaneous whole.
• Prop. 53. Prior to all things eternal there exists Eternity; and prior to all things temporal, Time.
• Prop. 54. Every eternity is a measure of things eternal, and every time of things in time; and these two are the only measures of life and movement in things.
• Prop. 55. Of things which exist in time, some have a perpetual duration, whilst others have a dated existence in a part of time.

G. Of the Grades of Causality

• Prop. 56. All that is produced by secondary beings is in a greater measure produced from those prior and more determinative principles from which the secondary were themselves derived.
• Prop. 57. Every cause both operates prior to its consequent and gives rise to a greater number of posterior terms.
• Prop. 58. All that is produced by a greater number of causes is more composite than the product of fewer causes.
• Prop. 59. Whatever is simple in its being may be either superior to composite things or inferior to them.
• Prop. 60. Whatever principle is the cause of a greater number of effects is superior to that which has a power limited to fewer objects and which gives rise to parts of those existences constituted by the other as wholes.
• Prop. 62. Every manifold which is nearer to the One has fewer members than those more remote, but is greater in power.
• Prop. 63. Every unparticipated term gives rise to two orders of participated terms, the one in contingent participants, the other in things which participate at all times and in virtue of their nature.
• Prop. 64. Every original monad gives rise to two series, one consisting of substances complete in themselves, and one of irradiations which have their substantiality in something other than themselves.
• Prop. 65. All that subsists in any fashion has its being either in its cause, as an originative potency; or as a substantial predicate; or by participation, after the manner of an image.

H. Of Wholes and Parts

• Prop. 66. Every existent is related to every other either as a whole or as a part or by identity or by difference.
• Prop. 67. Every whole is either a whole-before-the-parts a whole-of-parts, or a whole-in-the-part.
• Prop. 68. Every whole-in-the-part is a part of a whole-of-parts.
• Prop. 69. Every whole-of-parts participates the whole-before-the-parts.
• Prop. 70. All those more universal characters which inhere in the originative principles both irradiate their participants before the specific characters and are slower to withdraw from a being which has once shared in them.
• Prop. 71. All those characters which in the originative causes have higher and more universal rank become in the resultant beings, through the irradiations which proceed from them, a kind of substratum for the gifts of the more specific principles; and while the irradiations of the superior principles thus serve as a basis, the characters which proceed from secondary principles are founded upon them: there is thus an order of precedence in participation, and successive rays strike downwards upon the same recipient, the more universal causes affecting it first, and the more specific supplementing these by the bestowal of their own gifts upon the participants.
• Prop. 72. All those characters which in the participants have the relative position of a basis proceed from more complete and more universal causes.
• Prop. 73. Every whole is at the same time an existent thing, and participates Being; but not every existent is a whole.
• Prop. 74. Every specific Form is a whole, as being composed of a number of individuals each of which goes to make up the Form; but not every whole is a specific Form.

I. Of the Relation of Causes to their Effects; and of Potency

• Prop. 75. Every cause properly so called transcends its resultant.
• Prop. 76. All that arises from an unmoved cause has an invariable substance; all that arises from a mobile cause, a variable.
• Prop. 77. All that exists potentially is advanced to actuality by the agency of something which is actually what the other is potentially: the partially potential by that which is actual in the same partial respect, and the wholly potential by the wholly actual.
• Prop. 78. There is a perfect and an imperfect potency.
• Prop. 79. All that comes to be arises out of the twofold potency.
• Prop. 80. The proper nature of all bodies is to be acted upon, and of all incorporeals to be agents, the former being in themselves inactive and the latter impassible; but through association with the body the incorporeal too is acted upon, even as through partnership with incorporeals bodies too can act.
• Prop. 81. All that is participated without loss of separateness is present to the participant through an inseparable potency which it implants.
• Prop. 82. Every incorporeal, if it be capable of reverting upon itself when participated by other things is participated without loss of separateness.
• Prop. 83. All that is capable of self-knowledge is capable of every form of self-reversion.
• Prop. 84. All that perpetually is is infinite in potency.
• Prop. 85. All that perpetually comes to be has an infinite potency of coming to be.
• Prop. 86. All true Being is infinite neither in number nor in size, but only in potency.

J. Of Being, Limit, and Infinitude

• Prop. 87. All that is eternal has Being; but not all that has Being is eternal.
• Prop. 88. There is true Being both prior to and in Eternity, and there is also true Being which participates Eternity.
• Prop. 89. All true Being is composed of limit and infinite.
• Prop. 90. Prior to all that is composed of limit and infinitude there exist substantially and independently the first Limit and the first Infinity.
• Prop. 91. There are both finite and infinite potencies; but all finite potency arises from infinite potency, and this latter from the first Infinity.
• Prop. 92. The whole multitude of infinite potencies is dependent upon one principle, the first Infinity, which is not potency in the sense that it is participated or exists in things which are potent, but is Potency-in-itself, not the potency of an individual but the cause of all that is.
• Prop. 93. All infinitude in things which have Being is infinite neither to the superior orders nor to itself.
• Prop. 94. All perpetuity is a kind of infinitude, but not all infinitude is perpetuity.
• Prop. 95. The more unified potency is always more infinite than one which is passing into plurality.
• Prop. 96. If the potency of any finite body be infinite, it is incorporeal.

K. Supplementary Theorems on Causality, etc.

• Prop. 97. The originative cause of each series communicates its distinctive property to the entire series; and what the cause is primitively the series is by remission.
• Prop. 98. Every cause which is separate from its effects exists at, once everywhere and nowhere.
• Prop. 99. Every unparticipated term arises qua unparticipated from no cause other than itself but is itself the first principle and cause of all the partidpated terms; thus the first principle of each series is always without origin.
• Prop. 100. Every series of wholes is referable to an unparticifated first principle and cause; and all unparticipated terms are dependent from the one First Principle of all things.
• Prop. 101. All things which participate intelligence are preceded by the unparticipated Intelligence, those which participate life by Life, and those which participate being by Being; and of these three un participated principles Being is prior to Life and Life to Intelligence.
• Prop. 102. All that in any sense exists is composite of limit and infinite because of the primal Being; all that lives has self-movement because of the primal Life; and all that is cognitive participates knowledge because of the primal Intelligence.
• Prop. 103. All things are in all things, but in each according to its proper nature; for in Being there is life and intelligence; in Life, being and intelligence; in Intelligence, being and life; but each of these exists upon one level intellectually, upon another vitally, and on the third existentially.
• Prop. 104. All that is primitively eternal has both eternal existence and eternal activity.
• Prop. 105. All that is immortal is perpetual; but not all that is perpetual is immortal.
• Prop. 106. Intermediate between that which is wholly eternal (viz. in respect both of existence and of activity) and that which has its existence in time there is a principle eternal in one regard but in another measured by time.
• Prop. 107. All that is eternal in one regard and temporal in another is at once a Being and a coming-to-be.
• Prop. 108. Every particular member of any order can participate the monad of the rank immediately supra-jacent in one of two ways: either through the universal of its own order, or through the particular member of the higher series which is co-ordinate with it in respect of its analogous relation to that series as a whole.
• Prop. 109. Every particular intelligence participates the first Henad, which is above intelligence, both through the universal Intelligence and through the particular henad co-ordinate with it; every particular soul participates the universal Intelligence both through the universal Soul and through its particular intelligence; and every particular corporeal nature participates the universal Soul both through universal Nature and through a particular soul.
• Prop. 110. The first members of any transverse series, which are closely linked with their own monad, can participate in virtue of their analogous position those members of the suprajacent series which lie immediately above them; but the less perfect members of the lower order, which are many degrees removed from their proper originative principle, are incapable of enjoying such participation.
• Prop. 111. The intellective series comprises divine intelligences which have received participation in gods, and also bare intelligences; the psychical series comprises intellective souls, linked each with its own intelligence, and also bare souls; corporeal nature comprises natures over which souls preside, and also bare natures destitute of a soul's company.
• Prop. 112. The first members of any order have the form of their priors.

L. Of Divine Henads, or Gods

• Prop. 113. The whole number of the gods has the character of unity.
• Prop. 114. Every god is a self-complete henad or unit, and every self-complete henad is a god.
• Prop. 115. Every god is above Beings above Life, and above Intelligence.
• Prop. 116. Every god is participable, except the One.
• Prop. 117. Every god is a measure of things existent.
• Prop. 118. Every attribute of the gods pre-subsists in them in a manner consonant with their distinctive character as gods, and since this character is unitary (prop. 113) and above Being (prop. 115), they have all their attributes in a unitary and supra-existential mode.
• Prop. 119. The substance of every god is a supra-existential excellence; he has goodness neither as a state nor as part of his essence (for both states and essences have a secondary and remote rank relatively to the gods), but is supra-existentially good.
• Prop. 120. Every god embraces in his substance the function of exercising providence towards the universe; and the primary providence resides in the gods.
• Prop. 121. All that is divine has a substance which is goodness (prop. 119), a potency which has the character of unity, and a mode of knowledge which is secret and incomprehensible to all secondary beings alike.
• Prop. 122. All that is divine both exercises providence towards secondary existences and transcends the beings for which it provides: its providence involves no remission of its pure and unitary transcendence, neither does its separate unity annul its providence.
• Prop. 123. All that is divine is itself ineffable and unknowable by any secondary being because of its supra-existential unity, but it may be apprehended and known from the existents which participate it: wherefore only the First Principle is completely unknowable, as being unparticipated.
• Prop. 124. Every god has an undivided knowledge of things divided and a timeless knowledge of things temporal; he knows the contingent without contingency, the mutable immutably, and in general all things in a higher mode than belongs to their station.
• Prop. 125. From that station wherein he first reveals himself every god proceeds through all the secondary orders, continually multiplying and particularizing his bestowals, yet preserving the distinctive character of his proper nature.
• Prop. 126. A god is more universal as he is nearer to the One, more specific in proportion to his remoteness from it.
• Prop. 127. All that is divine is primordially and supremely simple, and for this reason completely self-sufficient.
• Prop. 128. Every god, when participated by beings of an order relatively near to him, is participated directly; when by those more remote, indirectly through a varying number of intermediate principles.
• Prop. 129. All divine bodies are such through the mediation of a divinized soul, all divine souls through a divine intelligence, and all divine intelligences by participation in a divine henad: the henad is immediate deity, the intelligence most divine, the soul divine, the body deisimilar.
• Prop. 130. In any divine order the highest terms more completely transcend those immediately subordinate to them than do these latter the subsequent terms; and the second order of terms are more closely linked with their immediate superiors than are their consequents with them.
• Prop. 131. Every god begins his characteristic activity with himself.
• Prop. 132. All orders of gods are bound together by mean terms.
• Prop. 133. Every god is a beneficent henad or a unifying excellence, and has this substantive character qua god (prop. 119); but the primal God is the Good unqualified and Unity unqualified, whilst each of those posterior to him is a particular excellence and a particular henad.
• Prop. 134. Every divine intelligence exercises intellection qua intelligence, but providence qua god.
• Prop. 135. Every divine henad is participated without mediation by some one real-existent, and whatever is divinized is linked by an upward tension to one divine henad: thus the participant genera of existents are identical in number with the participated henads.
• Prop. 136. Of any two gods the more universal, who stands nearer to the First Principle (prop. 126), is participated by a more universal genus of existents, the more particular and more remote by a more particular genus: and as existent to existent, so is henad to divine henad.
• Prop. 137. Every henad is co-operative with the One in producing the real-existent which participates it.
• Prop. 138. Of all the principles which participate the divine character and are thereby divinized the first and highest is Being.
• Prop. 139. The sequence of principles which participate the divine henads extends from Being to the bodily nature, since Being is the first (prop. 138) and body (inasmuch as we speak of heavenly or divine bodies) the last participant.
• Prop. 140. All the powers of the gods, taking their origin above and proceeding through the appropriate intermediaries, descend even to the last existents and the terrestrial regions.
• Prop. 141. There is one divine providence which transcends its objects and one which is co-ordinate with them.
• Prop. 142. The gods are present alike to all things; not all things, however, are present alike to the gods, but each order has a share in their presence proportioned to its station and capacity, some things receiving them as unities and others as manifolds, some perpetually and others for a time, some incorporeally and others through the body.
• Prop. 143. All inferior principles retreat before the presence of the gods; and provided the participant be fit for its reception, whatever is alien makes way for the divine light and all things are continuously illuminated by the gods.
• Prop. 144. The procession of all things existent and all cosmic orders of existents extends as far as do the orders of gods.
• Prop. 145. The distinctive character of any divine order travels through all the derivative existents and bestows itself upon all the inferior kinds.
• Prop. 146. In any divine procession the end is assimilated to the beginning, maintaining by its reversion thither a circle without beginning and without end.
• Prop. 147. In any divine rank the highest term is assimilated to the last term of the supra-jacent rank.
• Prop. 148. Every divine order has an internal unity of threefold origin, from its highest, its mean, and its last term.
• Prop. 149. The entire manifold of divine henads is finite in number.
• Prop. 150. Any processive term in the divine orders is incapable of receiving all the potencies of its producer, as are secondary principles in general of receiving all the potencies of their priors; the prior principles possess certain powers which transcend their inferiors and are incomprehensible to subsequent grades of deity.
• Prop. 151. All that is paternal in the gods is of primal operation and stands in the position of the Good at the head of the several divine ranks.
• Prop. 152. All that is generative in the gods proceeds in virtue of the infinitude of divine potency, multiplying itself and penetrating all things, and manifesting especially the character of unfailing perpetuity in the processive orders of secondary principles.
• Prop. 153. All that is perfect in the gods is the cause of divine perfection.
• Prop. 154. All that is protective in the gods preserves each principle in its proper station, so that by its unitary character it transcends derivative existences and is founded upon the primals.
• Prop. 155. All that is zoogonic or life-giving in the divine kinds is a generative cause, but not all the generative order is zoogonic; for the generative is the more universal, and nearer to the First Principle.
• Prop. 156. All that is the cause of purity is embraced in the protective order, but not all the protective is conversely identical with the purificatory.
• Prop. 157. Whereas it is the function of all paternal causes to bestow being on all things and originate the substantive existence of all that is, it is the office of all demiurgic or formal causes to preside over the bestowal of Form upon things composite, the assignment of their stations, and their numerical distinction as individuals: the demiurgic is thus in the same succession as the paternal, but is found in the more specific orders of gods.
• Prop. 158. All elevative causes among the gods differ both from the purificatory causes and from the conversive kinds.
• Prop. 159. Every order of gods is derived from the two initial principles, Limit and Infinity; but some manifest predominantly the causality of Limit, others that of Infinity.
• Prop. 160. All divine intelligence is perfect and has the character of unity; it is the primal Intelligence, and produces the others from its own being.
• Prop. 161. All the true Being which is attached to the gods is a divine Intelligible, and unparticipated.
• Prop. 162. All those henads which illuminate true Being are secret and intelligible: secret as conjoined with the One, intelligible as participated by Being.
• Prop. 163. All those henads are intellectual whereof the unparticipated Intelligence enjoys participation.
• Prop. 164. All those henads are supra-mundane whereof all the unparticipated Soul enjoys participation.
• Prop. 165. All those henads are intra-mundane which any sensible body participates.

M. Of Intelligences

• Prop. 166. There is both unparticipated and participated intelligence; and the latter is participated either by supra-mundane or by intra-mundane souls.
• Prop. 167. Every intelligence has intuitive knowledge of itself: but the primal Intelligence knows itself only, and intelligence and its object are here numerically one; whereas each subsequent intelligence knows simultaneously itself and its priors, so that its object is in part itself but in part its source.
• Prop. 168. Every intelligence in the act of intellection knows that it knows: the cognitive intelligence is not distinct from that which is conscious of the cognitive act.
• Prop. 169. Every intelligence has its existence, its potency and its activity in eternity.
• Prop. 170. Every intelligence has simultaneous, intellection of all things: but while the unparticipated Intelligence knows all unconditionally, each subsequent intelligence knows all in one especial aspect.
• Prop. 171. Every intelligence is an indivisible existence.
• Prop. 172. Every intelligence is directly constitutive of things which are perpetual and as regards their existence invariable.
• Prop. 173. Every intelligence is intellectually identical both with its priors and with its consequents—with the latter as their cause, with the former by participation. But since it is itself an intelligence and its essence is intellectual, it defines everything, both what it is as cause and what it is by participation, according to its own substantive character.
• Prop. 174. Every intelligence gives rise to its consequents by the act of intellection: its creative activity is thinkings and its thought is creation.
• Prop. 175. Every intelligence is primarily participated by principles which are intellectual at once in their existence and in their activity.
• Prop. 176. All the intellectual Forms are both implicit each in other and severally existent.
• Prop. 177. Every intelligence is a complete sum of Forms, but certain of them embrace more universal and others more specific Forms; and while the higher intelligences possess in a more universal manner all that their consequents possess more specifically, the lower also possess more specifically all that their priors have more universally.
• Prop. 178. Every intellectual Form is constitutive of things perpetual.
• Prop. 179. The entire intellectual series is finite.
• Prop. 180. Every intelligence is a whole, though not one composite of parts (prop. 171): whilst the unparticipated Intelligence is without qualification a whole, as having all its parts implicit in its totality, each of the specific intelligences contains the whole as a whole-in-the-part, and is thus all things specifically.
• Prop. 181. Every participated intelligence is either divine, as being linked to gods, or purely intellectual.
• Prop. 182. Every participated divine intelligence is participated by divine souls.
• Prop. 183. Every intelligence which is participated but purely intellectual is participated by souls which are neither divine nor yet subject to the alternation of intelligence with unintelligence.

N. Of Souls

• Prop. 184. Every soul is either divine or subject to change from intelligence to unintelligence, or else intermediate between these orders enjoying perpetual intellection although inferior to the divine souls.
• Prop. 185. All divine souls are gods upon the psychic level; all those which participate the intellectual intelligence are perpetually attendant upon gods; all those which admit of change are at certain times attendant upon gods.
• Prop. 186. Every soul is an incorporeal substance and separable from body.
• Prop. 187. Every soul is indestructible and imperishable.
• Prop. 188. Every soul is at once a principle of life and a living thing.
• Prop. 189. Every soul is self-animated (or has life in its own right).
• Prop. 190. Every soul is intermediate between the indivisible principles and those which are divided in association with bodies.
• Prop. 191. Every participated soul has an eternal existence but a temporal activity.
• Prop. 192. Every participated soul is of the order of things which perpetually are and is also the first of the things of process.
• Prop. 193. Every soul takes its proximate origin from an intelligence.
• Prop. 194. Every soul possesses all the Forms which intelligence possesses primitively.
• Prop. 195. Every soul is all things, the things of sense after the manner of an exemplar and the intelligible things after the manner of an image.
• Prop. 196. Every participated soul makes use of a first body which is perpetual and has a constitution without temporal origin and exempt from decay.
• Prop. 197. Every soul is a vital and cognitive substance, a substantial and cognitive principle of life, and a principle of knowledge as being a substance and a life-principle; and all these characters coexist in it, the substantial, the vital and the cognitive, all in all and each severally.
• Prop. 198. All that participates time but has perpetuity of movement is measured by periods.
• Prop. 199. Every intra-mundane soul has in its proper life periods and cyclic reinstatements.
• Prop. 200. Every psychic period is measured by time; but while the periods of the other souls are measured by some particular time, that of the first soul measured by time has the whole of time for measure.
• Prop. 201. All divine souls have a threefold activity, in their threefold capacity as souls, as recipients of a divine intelligence, and as derived from gods: as gods they exercise providence towards the universe, in virtue of their intellectual life they know all things, and in virtue of the self-movement proper to their being they impart motion to bodies.
• Prop. 202. All souls which are attendant upon gods and perpetually in their company are inferior to the divine grade, but are exalted above the particular souls.
• Prop. 203. In the entire psychic manifold the divine souls, which are greater in power than the rest, are restricted in number; those which are perpetually in their company have in the order as a whole a middle station in respect both of power and of multitude; while the particular souls are inferior in power to the others but are advanced to a greater number.
• Prop. 204. Every divine soul is sovereign over many souls which are perpetually in the divine company, and over yet more which are at certain times admitted to that station.
• Prop. 205. Every particular soul bears to the divine soul under which it is ranked in respect of its being the same relation as its vehicle bears to the vehicle of that divine soul.
• Prop. 206. Every particular soul can descend into temporal process and ascend from process to Being an infinite number of times.
• Prop. 207. The vehicle of every particular soul has been created by an unmoved cause.
• Prop. 208. The vehicle of every particular soul is immaterial, indiscerptible in respect of its existence, and impassible.
• Prop. 209. The vehicle of every particular soul descends by the addition of vestures increasingly material; and ascends in company with the soul through divestment of all that is material and recovery of its proper form, after the analogy of the soul which makes use of it: for the soul descends by the acquisition of irrational principles of life; and ascends by putting off all those faculties tending to temporal process with which it was invested in its descent, and becoming clean and bare of all such faculties as serve the uses of the process.
• Prop. 210. Every congenital psychic vehicle keeps the same shape and size perpetually, but is seen as greater or smaller and in varying shapes by reason of the addition or removal of other bodies.
• Prop. 211. Every particular soul, when it descends into temporal process, descends entire: there is not a part of it which remains above and a part which descends.

References

• Dodds, E. R. (1963). Proclus, The Elements of Theology: A Revised Text, with Translation, Introduction and Commentary (2nd edition). Oxford at the Clarendon Press.

📰 Article(s) of the same category(ies)

• Order of the Enneads
• Christos Tsagalis
• Glossary of Greek terms in the Enneads
• Fethi Meskini
• Philosophy
• Video Games, Violence, and the Ethics of Fantasy: Killing Time
• Steven Lechugar

---