WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.140 We are looking at a stack of sources today that 00:00:02.140 --> 00:00:06.459 feels a bit like an archaeological dig. We're 00:00:06.459 --> 00:00:08.720 brushing the dust off the 5th century AD, which, 00:00:08.820 --> 00:00:12.820 you know, it feels incredibly distant. And yet, 00:00:12.919 --> 00:00:15.740 the ideas we're about to discuss are, well, they 00:00:15.740 --> 00:00:18.100 feel strangely present in the room with us. They 00:00:18.100 --> 00:00:21.219 really do. We're talking about a man who is often 00:00:21.219 --> 00:00:24.600 called the last great light of antiquity. He 00:00:24.600 --> 00:00:28.000 was a philosopher, a mathematician, a poet. and 00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:31.059 a high priest of what was essentially a dying 00:00:31.059 --> 00:00:34.100 religion. And, you know, he was a man who likely 00:00:34.100 --> 00:00:37.200 shaped the way you think about God or maybe infinity, 00:00:37.280 --> 00:00:39.820 even if you have never, ever heard his name. 00:00:40.090 --> 00:00:41.649 That's the hook, isn't it? We're talking about 00:00:41.649 --> 00:00:44.490 Proclus, specifically Proclus Diodicus. Right. 00:00:44.630 --> 00:00:46.609 And usually when you see a title attached to 00:00:46.609 --> 00:00:48.750 a name, it's something like the great or the 00:00:48.750 --> 00:00:52.189 conqueror. But Diodocus, that means the successor. 00:00:52.429 --> 00:00:54.950 It does. And in the context of ancient Athens, 00:00:55.130 --> 00:00:56.850 that's a title that carries a massive amount 00:00:56.850 --> 00:00:58.950 of weight. It immediately begs the question, 00:00:59.090 --> 00:01:01.270 successor to whom? Yeah, I'm assuming we're not 00:01:01.270 --> 00:01:03.509 talking about a political dynasty here. No, no, 00:01:03.530 --> 00:01:06.010 nothing like that. This is an intellectual dynasty. 00:01:06.689 --> 00:01:09.709 Proclus was the successor to Plato. To Plato? 00:01:09.870 --> 00:01:11.950 He was the head of the Neoclatonic Academy in 00:01:11.950 --> 00:01:14.870 Athens. And you have to remember, by the time 00:01:14.870 --> 00:01:17.370 Proclus takes the chair in the 5th century, that 00:01:17.370 --> 00:01:20.430 institution represents nearly a thousand years 00:01:20.430 --> 00:01:23.489 of continuous philosophical tradition. A thousand 00:01:23.489 --> 00:01:26.569 years. He is, quite literally, sitting in the 00:01:26.569 --> 00:01:29.319 seat of the master. That feels like just an immense 00:01:29.319 --> 00:01:31.859 burden. You're not just a professor at that point. 00:01:31.900 --> 00:01:34.760 You are the living embodiment of a millennium 00:01:34.760 --> 00:01:36.980 of thought. And he took that burden so seriously. 00:01:37.260 --> 00:01:39.760 Our mission, really, in this deep dive, is to 00:01:39.760 --> 00:01:42.319 try and understand how Proclus, who was living 00:01:42.319 --> 00:01:45.319 in a world that was rapidly turning against his 00:01:45.319 --> 00:01:47.299 beliefs. Right, the Christianization of the empire. 00:01:47.599 --> 00:01:49.819 Exactly. How he managed to construct a system 00:01:49.819 --> 00:01:52.099 of thought that was so robust, so intricate, 00:01:52.299 --> 00:01:54.900 that it basically became a theory of everything. 00:01:56.280 --> 00:01:58.040 Irony, which I know we'll get to, is that this 00:01:58.040 --> 00:02:00.319 system became the secret architecture for the 00:02:00.319 --> 00:02:02.280 very religions that were trying to replace him. 00:02:02.379 --> 00:02:05.180 It's an incredible story. So we're pulling from 00:02:05.180 --> 00:02:08.219 some pretty dense material today. We've got the 00:02:08.219 --> 00:02:10.620 biography written by his student and his own 00:02:10.620 --> 00:02:12.539 successor, Marinus, which gives us a look at 00:02:12.539 --> 00:02:15.180 the man himself. We have his own commentaries 00:02:15.180 --> 00:02:18.419 on Plato and Euclid, which are, they're just 00:02:18.419 --> 00:02:21.379 massive. Huge, yeah. And then we have modern 00:02:21.379 --> 00:02:24.419 historical analysis of how these texts even survived. 00:02:25.449 --> 00:02:27.610 But I want to start with the man. Because when 00:02:27.610 --> 00:02:29.810 I was reading Marinus' account, the first thing 00:02:29.810 --> 00:02:32.409 that hit me wasn't the philosophy. It was just 00:02:32.409 --> 00:02:35.229 the sheer exhaustion I felt reading about his 00:02:35.229 --> 00:02:37.090 schedule. You're talking about his daily output. 00:02:37.330 --> 00:02:40.590 I am. Marinus claims Proclus wrote 700 lines 00:02:40.590 --> 00:02:44.889 of text every single day. It's staggering. I 00:02:44.889 --> 00:02:47.370 tried to visualize that. That's not just scribbling 00:02:47.370 --> 00:02:50.469 in a journal. This is composing complex, high 00:02:50.469 --> 00:02:53.210 -level philosophical arguments in ancient Greek. 00:02:53.629 --> 00:02:56.430 By hand, probably by candlelight. It's an industrial 00:02:56.430 --> 00:02:58.389 level of production. Yeah. And you have to remember, 00:02:58.550 --> 00:03:00.669 he wasn't doing this in a vacuum in isolation. 00:03:01.069 --> 00:03:03.889 He was teaching. He was holding tutorials. He 00:03:03.889 --> 00:03:06.189 was performing religious rituals multiple times 00:03:06.189 --> 00:03:08.669 a day. And running the academy. And running the 00:03:08.669 --> 00:03:12.110 entire academy. 700 lines. I mean, that's basically 00:03:12.110 --> 00:03:14.550 writing a short book every single week while 00:03:14.550 --> 00:03:16.870 also being a university president and a full 00:03:16.870 --> 00:03:19.370 -time priest. It speaks to a kind of urgency, 00:03:19.550 --> 00:03:22.110 doesn't it? Proclus was living in the twilight 00:03:22.110 --> 00:03:24.919 of his civilization. He likely felt that if he 00:03:24.919 --> 00:03:28.400 didn't write it all down, if he didn't systematize 00:03:28.400 --> 00:03:31.479 it now, it would just be lost forever. A race 00:03:31.479 --> 00:03:33.939 against time. But Marinus is really careful to 00:03:33.939 --> 00:03:36.199 tell us that he wasn't some, you know. miserable, 00:03:36.340 --> 00:03:39.259 hunched -over workaholic. He describes Proclus 00:03:39.259 --> 00:03:42.860 as prosperous, generous, and very socially active. 00:03:43.259 --> 00:03:45.460 Yeah, the sources mention he was a vegetarian 00:03:45.460 --> 00:03:47.639 and a bachelor, and he lived in this really nice 00:03:47.639 --> 00:03:49.759 house in Athens. He's supposed to have been a 00:03:49.759 --> 00:03:52.680 magnet for people. He absolutely was. He wasn't 00:03:52.680 --> 00:03:55.120 a hermit in a cave. He was deeply engaged with 00:03:55.120 --> 00:03:57.280 his students, with his friends. He had a very 00:03:57.280 --> 00:04:00.379 specific vibe, for lack of a better word. He 00:04:00.379 --> 00:04:02.159 was even described as having this sort of radiant 00:04:02.159 --> 00:04:04.919 quality about him. Inches. But that social... 00:04:05.000 --> 00:04:07.719 Grace was paired with this just terrifying intellectual 00:04:07.719 --> 00:04:11.099 discipline. It's an unusual combination. And 00:04:11.099 --> 00:04:13.060 it's that discipline that led to these massive 00:04:13.060 --> 00:04:15.219 works. I mean, Hegel, the German philosopher, 00:04:15.439 --> 00:04:19.360 centuries later, he called Proclus' Platonic 00:04:19.360 --> 00:04:22.139 theology the true turning point from ancient 00:04:22.139 --> 00:04:24.920 philosophy to Christianity. Which is such a bold 00:04:24.920 --> 00:04:28.180 claim. It's a huge claim. It suggests that Proclus 00:04:28.180 --> 00:04:30.540 is the pivot on which the whole history of Western 00:04:30.540 --> 00:04:33.000 thought turns. And Hegel's reasoning, I think. 00:04:33.550 --> 00:04:36.129 was that he saw Proclus as the moment where the 00:04:36.129 --> 00:04:39.550 ancient world's kind of messy, vibrant polytheism 00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:42.720 got organized. It got sorted into a strict logical 00:04:42.720 --> 00:04:45.120 hierarchy. Proclus essentially cleaned up the 00:04:45.120 --> 00:04:47.819 ancient world, packaged it, and made it ready 00:04:47.819 --> 00:04:50.339 for the medieval world to digest. He created 00:04:50.339 --> 00:04:52.500 the system. He created the system. And to understand 00:04:52.500 --> 00:04:54.379 how he did that, we really need to look at where 00:04:54.379 --> 00:04:56.120 he came from. He wasn't actually an Athenian 00:04:56.120 --> 00:04:58.079 by birth, was he? No, not at all. He was born 00:04:58.079 --> 00:05:01.279 in Constantinople in 412 AD. His family was from 00:05:01.279 --> 00:05:03.680 Lycia, which is in modern day Turkey. They were 00:05:03.680 --> 00:05:07.439 high status aristocrats. Right. And like a lot 00:05:07.439 --> 00:05:09.829 of high status young men of that era. His path 00:05:09.829 --> 00:05:11.850 was pretty much predetermined. His father was 00:05:11.850 --> 00:05:14.550 a high -ranking lawyer, a jurist, and Proclus 00:05:14.550 --> 00:05:17.509 was sent to Alexandria to follow in those exact 00:05:17.509 --> 00:05:20.829 footsteps. So he was studying rhetoric and Roman 00:05:20.829 --> 00:05:23.290 law. The whole package. This is such a classic 00:05:23.290 --> 00:05:25.410 narrative arc, isn't it? The golden child sent 00:05:25.410 --> 00:05:27.810 off to the best schools to join the family firm. 00:05:28.089 --> 00:05:30.629 And by all accounts, he was really good at it. 00:05:30.750 --> 00:05:34.029 He was a successful practicing lawyer in Constantinople 00:05:34.029 --> 00:05:36.920 for a brief period. He had the mind for it. That 00:05:36.920 --> 00:05:39.079 ability to organize incredibly complex information, 00:05:39.339 --> 00:05:41.800 the rhetorical skill. He could have been a very 00:05:41.800 --> 00:05:44.480 powerful, very wealthy bureaucrat. But then he 00:05:44.480 --> 00:05:46.899 hits a wall. He does. The sources describe a 00:05:46.899 --> 00:05:48.740 trip he took back to Constantinople with his 00:05:48.740 --> 00:05:52.459 instructor. And he has this epiphany. He realizes 00:05:52.459 --> 00:05:55.939 he absolutely hates the law. He truly preferred 00:05:55.939 --> 00:05:58.180 philosophy, is the quote. I think a lot of people 00:05:58.180 --> 00:06:00.170 can relate to that moment. You're good at something. 00:06:00.350 --> 00:06:02.709 You're on a successful path. But you realize 00:06:02.709 --> 00:06:05.769 deep down it doesn't feed your soul. For Proclus, 00:06:05.870 --> 00:06:08.970 the law was all about, you know, temporary human 00:06:08.970 --> 00:06:12.089 squabbles over property and contracts. Philosophy 00:06:12.089 --> 00:06:15.149 was about eternal truth. About the structure 00:06:15.149 --> 00:06:17.610 of reality itself. A slightly bigger topic. Just 00:06:17.610 --> 00:06:20.970 a bit. So he goes back to Alexandria, but he 00:06:20.970 --> 00:06:25.000 pivots. Hard. He starts studying Aristotle under 00:06:25.000 --> 00:06:28.240 a guy named Olympiadors the Elder and then mathematics 00:06:28.240 --> 00:06:30.860 under a teacher named Heron. And we should clarify 00:06:30.860 --> 00:06:33.060 for anyone furiously Googling this right now, 00:06:33.120 --> 00:06:35.600 this is not Hero of Alexandria, the guy who invented 00:06:35.600 --> 00:06:38.019 the steam engine. Right. Different Heron. Important 00:06:38.019 --> 00:06:40.639 distinction. But this period in Alexandria is 00:06:40.639 --> 00:06:43.660 crucial because Proclus very quickly runs into 00:06:43.660 --> 00:06:46.180 a problem. Which is? He's smarter than his teachers. 00:06:47.360 --> 00:06:49.779 That's a tough spot to be in for a student. The 00:06:49.779 --> 00:06:52.500 sources say he became dissatisfied. The level 00:06:52.500 --> 00:06:54.879 of instruction in Alexandria just wasn't rigorous 00:06:54.879 --> 00:06:56.980 enough for him. It wasn't spiritual enough. He 00:06:56.980 --> 00:06:59.899 wanted the real deal. So in 431 A .D., when he's 00:06:59.899 --> 00:07:02.319 about 19 years old, he makes the pilgrimage. 00:07:02.579 --> 00:07:05.819 He goes to Athens. Athens in 431 A .D. Let's 00:07:05.819 --> 00:07:07.399 take that picture. This is not the golden age 00:07:07.399 --> 00:07:09.800 of Pericles anymore, is it? Not even close. It's 00:07:09.800 --> 00:07:13.420 essentially a quiet university town. But, and 00:07:13.420 --> 00:07:15.839 this is a huge but, it is still the symbolic 00:07:15.839 --> 00:07:19.180 heart of paganism. The Roman Empire is rapidly, 00:07:19.319 --> 00:07:21.899 aggressively Christianizing. Temples are being 00:07:21.899 --> 00:07:23.699 closed. They're being converted into churches. 00:07:23.899 --> 00:07:26.319 There's real pressure. But in Athens, the academy 00:07:26.319 --> 00:07:28.699 is holding on. It's an enclave. It's the last 00:07:28.699 --> 00:07:31.579 bastion. So Proclus arrives, this brilliant young 00:07:31.579 --> 00:07:33.860 man looking for the real stuff. And he finds 00:07:33.860 --> 00:07:36.339 it? Oh, he finds it. He studies under Plutarch 00:07:36.339 --> 00:07:38.120 of Athens. Again, not the famous biographer, 00:07:38.240 --> 00:07:40.500 a different philosopher. And then under a man 00:07:40.500 --> 00:07:43.920 named Sirianus, who becomes his key mentor. And 00:07:43.920 --> 00:07:46.379 he also studied with a woman, right, Asclepaginia. 00:07:46.480 --> 00:07:48.779 Yes, which is fascinating. She was the daughter 00:07:48.779 --> 00:07:51.180 of Plutarch of Athens, and she's the one who 00:07:51.180 --> 00:07:53.540 teaches him the more mystical side of the tradition. 00:07:53.779 --> 00:07:56.279 She instructs him in the Chaldean oracles and 00:07:56.279 --> 00:07:58.459 the courageical rituals. So he's getting the 00:07:58.459 --> 00:08:02.160 logic from Sirianus and the magic from Asclepaginia. 00:08:02.279 --> 00:08:04.439 He's getting the complete curriculum, and his 00:08:04.439 --> 00:08:07.259 rise is just incredibly fast. Meteoric is the 00:08:07.259 --> 00:08:09.639 word. He succeeds Sirianus as the head of the 00:08:09.639 --> 00:08:13.639 academy in 437 AD. He's, what, roughly 25 years 00:08:13.639 --> 00:08:17.040 old? So 25. 25. And he's leading the most prestigious 00:08:17.040 --> 00:08:19.980 philosophical institution in the entire world. 00:08:20.600 --> 00:08:23.240 But this wasn't just an academic post, was it? 00:08:23.480 --> 00:08:26.139 In that political climate, being the successor 00:08:26.139 --> 00:08:29.839 to Plato, that must have put a huge target on 00:08:29.839 --> 00:08:32.399 your back. Absolutely. The Christian authorities 00:08:32.399 --> 00:08:34.919 in Athens were not happy about this vibrant, 00:08:34.980 --> 00:08:37.240 influential pagan center operating in their city. 00:08:37.399 --> 00:08:39.799 And we have records that Proclus had to go into 00:08:39.799 --> 00:08:42.340 exile for a year. Right. He traveled to Asia 00:08:42.340 --> 00:08:45.620 Minor to, as the source puts it, avoid pressure 00:08:45.620 --> 00:08:48.539 from Christian authorities. Pressure feels like 00:08:48.539 --> 00:08:50.720 a very polite way of saying it. It likely meant 00:08:50.720 --> 00:08:53.600 direct threats of imprisonment or violence or 00:08:53.600 --> 00:08:55.440 the seizure of the academy's property. But he 00:08:55.440 --> 00:08:58.000 came back. He came back. And for the next, what, 00:08:58.080 --> 00:09:01.279 almost 50 years, until his death in 485, he managed 00:09:01.279 --> 00:09:03.940 to keep the academy running. He navigated this 00:09:03.940 --> 00:09:06.139 incredibly hostile political landscape with... 00:09:06.429 --> 00:09:09.710 immense skill. He was a guardian. And this defensive 00:09:09.710 --> 00:09:12.269 posture, this profound need to protect the tradition, 00:09:12.389 --> 00:09:14.289 I think that's what drove him to build his system, 00:09:14.350 --> 00:09:16.889 to codify everything. Okay, so let's get into 00:09:16.889 --> 00:09:19.690 that system. We call it Neoplatonism, but I know 00:09:19.690 --> 00:09:21.350 that's a modern term. They wouldn't have used 00:09:21.350 --> 00:09:23.830 that. No, never. They just consider themselves 00:09:23.830 --> 00:09:27.450 Platonists, or maybe the Platonists. They believe 00:09:27.450 --> 00:09:30.210 they were simply transmitting the correct, divinely 00:09:30.210 --> 00:09:32.940 inspired interpretations of Plato. But in reality, 00:09:33.039 --> 00:09:34.860 they were building this massive metaphysical 00:09:34.860 --> 00:09:37.820 skyscraper on top of Plato's original foundations. 00:09:38.220 --> 00:09:40.659 That's a perfect analogy. Yeah. And to understand 00:09:40.659 --> 00:09:42.759 Proclus, we have to understand the basic floor 00:09:42.759 --> 00:09:45.539 plan of this skyscraper. It really starts with 00:09:45.539 --> 00:09:48.659 the three hypostases, which was an idea established 00:09:48.659 --> 00:09:51.740 by Plotinus a few centuries earlier. Right. The 00:09:51.740 --> 00:09:54.139 three levels of reality. Correct. So at the very 00:09:54.139 --> 00:09:57.740 top, the absolute peak, you have the one in Greek. 00:09:58.190 --> 00:10:01.169 Two hen. The one. The one is the source of everything 00:10:01.169 --> 00:10:04.570 that exists. It is absolute perfect unity. But 00:10:04.570 --> 00:10:07.070 it's so unified that it's beyond being. It's 00:10:07.070 --> 00:10:09.350 beyond thought. It's beyond language. You can't 00:10:09.350 --> 00:10:12.049 even say the one is good because that implies 00:10:12.049 --> 00:10:14.370 a distinction between the one and the quality 00:10:14.370 --> 00:10:16.529 of goodness. So you can't describe it at all. 00:10:16.610 --> 00:10:19.330 You can only say what it's not. It just is. The 00:10:19.330 --> 00:10:22.309 ultimate singularity. Okay. So it's this incomprehensible 00:10:22.309 --> 00:10:25.580 source. What happens next? From the one. Reality 00:10:25.580 --> 00:10:28.080 overflows. It emanates like light from the sun 00:10:28.080 --> 00:10:30.379 down to the second level. And that second level 00:10:30.379 --> 00:10:34.279 is the intellect. In Greek, nousu. The intellect. 00:10:34.600 --> 00:10:36.639 How should we distinguish that from the one? 00:10:36.840 --> 00:10:39.940 Okay, so think of the one as pure, undifferentiated 00:10:39.940 --> 00:10:43.059 white light. The intellect is like a perfect 00:10:43.059 --> 00:10:45.639 crystal prism that that light shines through. 00:10:45.679 --> 00:10:48.320 It splits the unity of light into a beautiful, 00:10:48.399 --> 00:10:50.779 ordered spectrum of colors. The colors being? 00:10:50.980 --> 00:10:54.230 The forms. Plato's forms. This is the realm where 00:10:54.230 --> 00:10:57.250 the perfect eternal idea of justice, of beauty, 00:10:57.389 --> 00:11:00.769 of triangularity, of man exists. It's the world 00:11:00.769 --> 00:11:03.909 of pure eternal thought. It's being in its truest 00:11:03.909 --> 00:11:06.889 sense. Okay. So the one is pure unity. The intellect 00:11:06.889 --> 00:11:08.889 is the world of perfect ideas or forms. What's 00:11:08.889 --> 00:11:10.789 the third level? The third level is the soul. 00:11:11.210 --> 00:11:14.289 Or psyche. And the soul is the bridge. It's dynamic. 00:11:14.330 --> 00:11:16.769 It looks up at the static eternal forms in the 00:11:16.769 --> 00:11:18.590 intellect and it projects them down into time 00:11:18.590 --> 00:11:21.230 and space. It puts them into motion. So the soul 00:11:21.230 --> 00:11:23.529 is the active builder. It takes the blueprints 00:11:23.529 --> 00:11:25.870 from the intellect and actually, you know, builds 00:11:25.870 --> 00:11:28.509 the universe with them. Precisely. The cascade 00:11:28.509 --> 00:11:32.389 is. The one, which is beyond being, overflows 00:11:32.389 --> 00:11:35.690 into the intellect, which is true being. Which 00:11:35.690 --> 00:11:38.090 is then articulated in time and space by the 00:11:38.090 --> 00:11:41.860 soul creating the physical world we see. So that's 00:11:41.860 --> 00:11:44.600 the basic neoplatonic framework that Proclus 00:11:44.600 --> 00:11:47.080 inherits. But he doesn't just accept it wholesale. 00:11:47.279 --> 00:11:50.720 He tweaks it. And one of the biggest tweaks he 00:11:50.720 --> 00:11:53.139 makes concerns the very bottom of that chain, 00:11:53.320 --> 00:11:56.840 the physical world, matter itself. This is a 00:11:56.840 --> 00:11:59.320 critical distinction and is one of his most important 00:11:59.320 --> 00:12:02.200 contributions. Plotinus, the founder of this 00:12:02.200 --> 00:12:04.799 school, had a somewhat negative view of matter. 00:12:04.980 --> 00:12:07.399 Right. He often spoke of matter as the point 00:12:07.399 --> 00:12:09.879 where the divine light finally fades out. It's 00:12:09.879 --> 00:12:12.679 a deficiency, a lack. Some even interpreted it 00:12:12.679 --> 00:12:14.679 as being the source of evil. Which makes a certain 00:12:14.679 --> 00:12:16.240 kind of sense if you're a philosopher trying 00:12:16.240 --> 00:12:18.039 to escape the body. The body is the prison. The 00:12:18.039 --> 00:12:21.000 material world is the trap. Exactly. But Proclus 00:12:21.000 --> 00:12:23.860 looked at that and saw a major logical flaw. 00:12:24.179 --> 00:12:26.840 What was the flaw? If everything, without exception, 00:12:27.120 --> 00:12:28.960 comes from the one. Which is the first principle. 00:12:29.139 --> 00:12:32.940 And the one is supremely good. Then matter must 00:12:32.940 --> 00:12:36.039 also ultimately derive from the one. Therefore, 00:12:36.120 --> 00:12:39.309 matter cannot be inherently evil. So he redeems 00:12:39.309 --> 00:12:41.970 the physical world. He completely redeems it. 00:12:42.009 --> 00:12:44.610 He argues that matter participates in the divine 00:12:44.610 --> 00:12:46.730 order, just like everything else. It's the last, 00:12:46.769 --> 00:12:49.669 faintest echo of the divine song, but it's still 00:12:49.669 --> 00:12:51.889 part of the song. And that has huge implications. 00:12:52.230 --> 00:12:55.009 Huge. It allows Proclus to be much more positive 00:12:55.009 --> 00:12:56.710 about the natural world, about the beauty of 00:12:56.710 --> 00:12:59.350 the cosmos, and importantly for him, about the 00:12:59.350 --> 00:13:02.090 use of physical objects in religious rituals. 00:13:03.540 --> 00:13:05.519 statues, talismans, things like that. Okay, that 00:13:05.519 --> 00:13:07.940 makes sense. But his biggest innovation, and 00:13:07.940 --> 00:13:10.240 this is the one that frankly makes my head spin 00:13:10.240 --> 00:13:13.120 a little bit, is the henads. Ah, henads, yes. 00:13:13.340 --> 00:13:15.679 This is Proclus' masterstroke. It's his unique 00:13:15.679 --> 00:13:17.919 architectural addition to the skyscraper. We 00:13:17.919 --> 00:13:19.720 need to break this down really carefully. Why 00:13:19.720 --> 00:13:22.000 did he even need them? What was the problem he 00:13:22.000 --> 00:13:23.899 was seeing in the old system? The problem was 00:13:23.899 --> 00:13:27.360 the gap. The huge chasm between the absolute 00:13:27.360 --> 00:13:31.360 abstract unity of the one and the teeming, messy 00:13:31.360 --> 00:13:34.159 multiplicity of our world. Specifically, if you 00:13:34.159 --> 00:13:38.019 have one single abstract one at the top, where 00:13:38.019 --> 00:13:40.279 do the traditional Greek gods go? Where's Zeus? 00:13:40.830 --> 00:13:43.450 Where is Apollo? Where is Athena? Are they just 00:13:43.450 --> 00:13:46.850 metaphors for aspects of the one? And for a devout 00:13:46.850 --> 00:13:49.629 pagan priest like Proclus, reducing the gods 00:13:49.629 --> 00:13:52.570 he worships every day to mere metaphors is, that's 00:13:52.570 --> 00:13:55.509 unacceptable. They have to be real distinct entities. 00:13:55.909 --> 00:13:58.470 Precisely. He needed to find a place for the 00:13:58.470 --> 00:14:01.309 gods in the org chart of reality. So Proclus 00:14:01.309 --> 00:14:03.429 introduces a new layer. He inserts it between 00:14:03.429 --> 00:14:05.429 the one and the intellect. And he calls this 00:14:05.429 --> 00:14:08.070 layer the henads. The henads. The word comes 00:14:08.070 --> 00:14:10.389 from the Greek hen, which just means one or unit. 00:14:10.529 --> 00:14:13.309 So there isn't just the one. There are the ones, 00:14:13.309 --> 00:14:15.450 plural. You can think of them as unitary gods 00:14:15.450 --> 00:14:18.029 or super gods. They participate in the nature 00:14:18.029 --> 00:14:20.580 of the one. They are beyond being. They are pure 00:14:20.580 --> 00:14:22.600 unity, but they are also distinct from one another. 00:14:22.879 --> 00:14:25.480 Each henad is the unique source, the head of 00:14:25.480 --> 00:14:28.159 a specific chain of reality. A chain. Okay, this 00:14:28.159 --> 00:14:30.539 is a key term for Proclus. Serera, I think, is 00:14:30.539 --> 00:14:34.120 the Greek. Yes, serai, chains. This is the core 00:14:34.120 --> 00:14:36.740 of his vision. Imagine a series of great luminous 00:14:36.740 --> 00:14:39.360 chains hanging down from the highest heaven to 00:14:39.360 --> 00:14:41.779 the lowest bit of earth. Okay. At the very top 00:14:41.779 --> 00:14:44.480 of one chain holding it is a henod. Let's call 00:14:44.480 --> 00:14:47.720 this henod by its traditional name. Helios, the 00:14:47.720 --> 00:14:50.710 sun god. Okay, so Helios the Hinnad is at the 00:14:50.710 --> 00:14:53.289 top. The divine power and character of Helios 00:14:53.289 --> 00:14:56.809 then cascades down that specific chain. In the 00:14:56.809 --> 00:14:59.529 realm of the intellect, it manifests as the perfect 00:14:59.529 --> 00:15:02.769 idea of the sun. In the realm of the soul, it 00:15:02.769 --> 00:15:04.950 manifests as the animating principles of sun 00:15:04.950 --> 00:15:07.730 -like beings, like, say, angels or demons associated 00:15:07.730 --> 00:15:10.429 with the sun. And then in our world? In the physical 00:15:10.429 --> 00:15:13.250 sky, it manifests as the actual physical sun 00:15:13.250 --> 00:15:15.360 that we see. And here on Earth, it manifests 00:15:15.360 --> 00:15:17.820 in things that share that unique solar signature. 00:15:18.139 --> 00:15:21.200 The metal gold, sunflowers, roosters, certain 00:15:21.200 --> 00:15:23.700 sun -colored stones. So a sunflower isn't just 00:15:23.700 --> 00:15:25.820 a plant that happens to look like the sun? No. 00:15:25.879 --> 00:15:28.220 For Proclus, it is the bottom -most link of a 00:15:28.220 --> 00:15:30.799 metaphysical chain that leads directly back uninterrupted 00:15:30.799 --> 00:15:34.039 to the god Helios. Wow. And this applies to everything. 00:15:34.639 --> 00:15:36.700 Everything. There's an Apollonian chain, which 00:15:36.700 --> 00:15:38.799 includes things like music, healing, prophecy, 00:15:39.039 --> 00:15:41.779 the laurel tree. There's a Hermetic chain for 00:15:41.779 --> 00:15:46.120 communication, travel, interpretation. Proclus 00:15:46.120 --> 00:15:49.039 sees the entire universe as what he calls a polycentric 00:15:49.039 --> 00:15:52.590 network. It's not one center, but many. Every 00:15:52.590 --> 00:15:55.490 single thing in reality belongs to one or more 00:15:55.490 --> 00:15:58.210 of these divine series. So he solved the problem 00:15:58.210 --> 00:16:02.110 of how a single one creates a diverse many. He 00:16:02.110 --> 00:16:04.429 basically said the one first creates a kind of 00:16:04.429 --> 00:16:07.470 divine committee, a board of directors. A divine 00:16:07.470 --> 00:16:09.169 bureaucracy is a great way to put it or divine 00:16:09.169 --> 00:16:12.129 taxonomy. And what's so beautiful about it from 00:16:12.129 --> 00:16:14.049 his perspective is that it connects everything. 00:16:14.509 --> 00:16:16.730 It means the world is thick with divinity. You 00:16:16.730 --> 00:16:19.070 aren't separated from the gods by some uncrossable 00:16:19.070 --> 00:16:21.629 abyss. You are literally surrounded by their 00:16:21.629 --> 00:16:23.990 signatures, their presence in the world. And 00:16:23.990 --> 00:16:25.870 he didn't just, you know, write this down as 00:16:25.870 --> 00:16:28.029 a nice idea. He tried to prove it like a mathematician. 00:16:28.450 --> 00:16:30.870 He did. His book, The Elements of Theology, is 00:16:30.870 --> 00:16:32.889 one of the most audacious texts ever written. 00:16:33.110 --> 00:16:35.389 It is structured exactly like Euclid's Elements 00:16:35.389 --> 00:16:38.429 of Geometry. It's made up of 211 propositions, 00:16:38.450 --> 00:16:40.669 each with a formal proof. Give us a taste of 00:16:40.669 --> 00:16:43.889 how that reads. Is it accessible? It's dry. It's 00:16:43.889 --> 00:16:46.889 incredibly rigorous. Proposition one is every 00:16:46.889 --> 00:16:50.330 manifold in some way participates in unity. Okay. 00:16:50.370 --> 00:16:52.330 That seems straightforward enough. A group of 00:16:52.330 --> 00:16:54.350 things has to have some kind of oneness to be 00:16:54.350 --> 00:16:57.889 a group. Exactly. And the proof is if a multitude 00:16:57.889 --> 00:17:00.830 were not one in any way, it would be nothing. 00:17:00.990 --> 00:17:02.529 It wouldn't be a group of things. It would be 00:17:02.529 --> 00:17:05.470 absolute chaos without any definition. Therefore, 00:17:05.710 --> 00:17:08.230 unity must be primary. And he just builds from 00:17:08.230 --> 00:17:11.289 there. Proposition five. Every manifold is posterior 00:17:11.289 --> 00:17:14.400 to the one. He builds these axioms one by one, 00:17:14.519 --> 00:17:17.460 logically, relentlessly, proving why the one 00:17:17.460 --> 00:17:19.700 must exist, why the intellect must follow, why 00:17:19.700 --> 00:17:22.119 souls must ascend. It's an attempt to make theology 00:17:22.119 --> 00:17:24.900 as certain, as irrefutable as geometry. If you 00:17:24.900 --> 00:17:27.019 accept Proposition 1, you are logically forced 00:17:27.019 --> 00:17:29.500 eventually to accept Proposition 211, which deals 00:17:29.500 --> 00:17:31.200 with the souls of humans. That was the goal. 00:17:31.559 --> 00:17:33.440 to make the existence of the gods as certain 00:17:33.440 --> 00:17:35.500 as the Pythagorean theorem. But this brings us 00:17:35.500 --> 00:17:37.240 to what seems like a major conflict. We have 00:17:37.240 --> 00:17:40.200 Proclus the Logician writing these dry, rigorous 00:17:40.200 --> 00:17:42.220 proofs, but then we have Proclus the Magician. 00:17:42.279 --> 00:17:44.619 We have to talk about theurgy. Theurgia, yes. 00:17:45.140 --> 00:17:48.619 Literally, it means god work. To a modern listener, 00:17:48.880 --> 00:17:51.539 this sounds like a hard left turn. I have just 00:17:51.539 --> 00:17:53.559 proven the entire structure of the universe with 00:17:53.559 --> 00:17:56.119 impeccable logic. Now please hand me that magic 00:17:56.119 --> 00:17:59.210 wand. Why did he need rituals if his logic was 00:17:59.210 --> 00:18:01.829 so solid? Because Proclus believed that the individual 00:18:01.829 --> 00:18:05.150 human soul is, well, it's damaged, it's fallen. 00:18:05.529 --> 00:18:07.789 It has descended down the chain into a physical 00:18:07.789 --> 00:18:10.490 body, and it's become distracted by our senses, 00:18:10.509 --> 00:18:13.150 overwhelmed by our passions, and it has forgotten 00:18:13.150 --> 00:18:15.690 where it came from. And logic isn't enough to 00:18:15.690 --> 00:18:18.309 fix that state of amnesia. Logic can help you 00:18:18.309 --> 00:18:20.509 draw a map. It can help you understand where 00:18:20.509 --> 00:18:22.990 you are and where you need to go. But it cannot, 00:18:23.170 --> 00:18:26.069 by itself, lift you up. The soul is too weak, 00:18:26.150 --> 00:18:28.869 too mired in the material world to ascend back 00:18:28.869 --> 00:18:31.630 to the one by intellect alone. We need leverage. 00:18:31.750 --> 00:18:34.029 We need help from the outside. And that help 00:18:34.029 --> 00:18:35.569 comes from those chains we were just talking 00:18:35.569 --> 00:18:37.849 about. Precisely. This is where the physics of 00:18:37.849 --> 00:18:39.450 the hen ends becomes a practical technology. 00:18:39.710 --> 00:18:42.329 If you want to ascend the solar chain to purify 00:18:42.329 --> 00:18:44.809 your soul and reconnect with the divine intellect 00:18:44.809 --> 00:18:47.549 of Helios, you use the physical objects at the 00:18:47.549 --> 00:18:49.839 bottom of his chain. The sunflower, the gold. 00:18:50.019 --> 00:18:51.960 You use the sunflower, you use the gold, you 00:18:51.960 --> 00:18:55.200 use specific herbs, you champ specific incantations, 00:18:55.200 --> 00:18:57.539 the power -laden words associated with that specific 00:18:57.539 --> 00:19:00.700 god. Okay, but how does that actually work? Is 00:19:00.700 --> 00:19:03.599 it like a magnet? Is it a prayer? What's the 00:19:03.599 --> 00:19:06.980 mechanism? Proclus uses the analogy of sympathy 00:19:06.980 --> 00:19:10.740 or resonance. Think of two musical strings on 00:19:10.740 --> 00:19:13.359 a harp that are tuned to the exact same note. 00:19:13.789 --> 00:19:16.150 If you pluck one, the other one across the room 00:19:16.150 --> 00:19:18.309 will start to vibrate on its own. Sympathetic 00:19:18.309 --> 00:19:21.289 vibration. Right. The sunflower, in its very 00:19:21.289 --> 00:19:24.089 essence, vibrates with the metaphysical frequency 00:19:24.089 --> 00:19:27.289 of the henadhelios. By engaging with the sunflower 00:19:27.289 --> 00:19:30.269 in a proper ritual context, by saying the divine 00:19:30.269 --> 00:19:33.049 passwords or names of the god, you are tuning 00:19:33.049 --> 00:19:35.150 the instrument of your own soul to that same 00:19:35.150 --> 00:19:37.569 frequency. And that vibration pulls you up the 00:19:37.569 --> 00:19:40.029 chain. The ritual draws you back up the chain 00:19:40.029 --> 00:19:42.250 towards your source. It's very important to note 00:19:42.250 --> 00:19:44.410 this isn't about commanding the gods like some 00:19:44.410 --> 00:19:47.289 sorcerer. It's about purifying and tuning the 00:19:47.289 --> 00:19:49.609 receiver of your own soul so that you can receive 00:19:49.609 --> 00:19:51.869 their divine influence. So it's more like spiritual 00:19:51.869 --> 00:19:54.289 radio engineering than casting spells? That's 00:19:54.289 --> 00:19:55.970 a great way to think about it. And Proclus was 00:19:55.970 --> 00:19:58.829 a true universalist in this. He famously said 00:19:58.829 --> 00:20:00.869 something like, the philosopher should be the 00:20:00.869 --> 00:20:02.930 hierophant of the whole world. He didn't just 00:20:02.930 --> 00:20:06.140 practice Greek rites. No. Marinus tells us he 00:20:06.140 --> 00:20:09.000 was initiated into Orphic mysteries. He practiced 00:20:09.000 --> 00:20:11.700 Chaldean rituals. He studied Egyptian traditions. 00:20:11.980 --> 00:20:14.579 He believed that different nations and cultures 00:20:14.579 --> 00:20:18.079 had, over millennia, discovered different chains, 00:20:18.299 --> 00:20:20.599 different pathways back to the divine. He was 00:20:20.599 --> 00:20:22.980 collecting the keys to every single door he could 00:20:22.980 --> 00:20:25.500 find. If it worked to purify the soul and lead 00:20:25.500 --> 00:20:27.680 it back to its source, Poclus was interested. 00:20:28.369 --> 00:20:30.529 There's another type of intermediate being that 00:20:30.529 --> 00:20:32.789 serves as a bridge for Proclus, and it connects 00:20:32.789 --> 00:20:34.710 to your earlier point about him being a brilliant 00:20:34.710 --> 00:20:36.849 mathematician. We have to talk about his commentary 00:20:36.849 --> 00:20:40.509 on Euclid. Yes. This is a text that, on the surface, 00:20:40.690 --> 00:20:42.509 seems like it doesn't really fit with all the 00:20:42.509 --> 00:20:45.509 mystical, theurgical stuff. It's a commentary 00:20:45.509 --> 00:20:48.970 on Book I of Euclid's Elements, Geometry 101. 00:20:49.750 --> 00:20:52.170 But historically, this might be his single most 00:20:52.170 --> 00:20:55.109 important contribution to science. Why is it 00:20:55.109 --> 00:20:57.390 so critical? I mean, it's a commentary, not an 00:20:57.390 --> 00:21:00.109 original work. Because Proclus had, essentially, 00:21:00.269 --> 00:21:02.819 a library card. to the Library of Alexandria 00:21:02.819 --> 00:21:05.460 before it was completely gone. He had access 00:21:05.460 --> 00:21:08.180 to a whole world of texts that are now lost to 00:21:08.180 --> 00:21:11.500 us, specifically a comprehensive history of geometry 00:21:11.500 --> 00:21:14.400 written by Eudemus of Rhodes, who was a student 00:21:14.400 --> 00:21:16.579 of Aristotle. So when Perklas is writing his 00:21:16.579 --> 00:21:19.039 commentary, he's quoting and summarizing books 00:21:19.039 --> 00:21:21.279 that vanished from the earth 1 ,500 years ago. 00:21:21.440 --> 00:21:24.400 Correct. In his introduction, he preserves what 00:21:24.400 --> 00:21:27.279 we now call the Eudemian summary. He just casually 00:21:27.279 --> 00:21:29.099 lists the entire lineage of Greek mathematics. 00:21:29.420 --> 00:21:32.559 He tells us who did what. Thales, Mamercus, Hippias, 00:21:32.759 --> 00:21:36.380 Leodamus, Archytas, Betetus, Eudoxus. It's a 00:21:36.380 --> 00:21:38.720 roll call. It's the only reason we know who contributed 00:21:38.720 --> 00:21:41.480 what. Without Proclus, would we know who discovered 00:21:41.480 --> 00:21:43.660 the properties of the circle versus who first 00:21:43.660 --> 00:21:46.140 worked on the dodecahedron? In many cases, no. 00:21:46.279 --> 00:21:48.400 We would just have Euclid's final product with 00:21:48.400 --> 00:21:51.299 no idea how it was built. Proclus literally saves 00:21:51.299 --> 00:21:53.380 the history of Greek mathematics from oblivion. 00:21:53.690 --> 00:21:55.869 That's incredible. But for him, math wasn't just 00:21:55.869 --> 00:21:59.089 history. It was part of that ladder back to the 00:21:59.089 --> 00:22:04.650 one. Yes. This is so key to his thinking. Proclus 00:22:04.650 --> 00:22:07.089 places mathematical objects in a unique space 00:22:07.089 --> 00:22:09.950 between the messy physical world and the pure 00:22:09.950 --> 00:22:12.890 world of ideas. Why in the middle? Okay, think 00:22:12.890 --> 00:22:15.609 about a circle. A physical circle, a drawing 00:22:15.609 --> 00:22:18.569 in the sand, a dinner plate is never perfect. 00:22:19.039 --> 00:22:20.799 It has bumps. It gets scratched. It's made of 00:22:20.799 --> 00:22:23.000 matter. It changes. It's particular. Right. Now 00:22:23.000 --> 00:22:24.799 think of the idea of circularity in the realm 00:22:24.799 --> 00:22:27.299 of the intellect. It's perfect, but it's purely 00:22:27.299 --> 00:22:30.740 abstract. It is one single, unchangeable concept. 00:22:31.019 --> 00:22:34.339 But in geometry, you can imagine two perfect 00:22:34.339 --> 00:22:37.299 circles intersecting. Or three, you can manipulate 00:22:37.299 --> 00:22:40.140 them in your mind. They have extension and properties, 00:22:40.359 --> 00:22:42.640 but they are made of matter. They exist in the 00:22:42.640 --> 00:22:44.759 imagination. They're the training ground. They 00:22:44.759 --> 00:22:47.180 are the gymnasium of the soul. Procolists believe 00:22:47.180 --> 00:22:49.640 that doing geometry forces your mind to detach 00:22:49.640 --> 00:22:52.559 from unreliable sensory data and to contemplate 00:22:52.559 --> 00:22:55.599 pure eternal structures. It is the perfect preparation 00:22:55.599 --> 00:22:57.980 for the philosophical contemplation of the forms. 00:22:58.059 --> 00:23:00.619 It gets you ready for the beatific vision. So 00:23:00.619 --> 00:23:02.599 it's the mental equivalent of the sunflower ritual. 00:23:02.900 --> 00:23:05.900 One uses physical objects to lift the soul. The 00:23:05.900 --> 00:23:08.289 other uses pure shapes to lift the mind. Both 00:23:08.289 --> 00:23:10.910 are bridges. Both are forms of ascent. And in 00:23:10.910 --> 00:23:12.990 his commentary on Plato's Timaeus, he goes even 00:23:12.990 --> 00:23:16.390 further. He explains in exhaustive detail how 00:23:16.390 --> 00:23:18.869 the world's soul creates the physical body of 00:23:18.869 --> 00:23:21.190 the universe. Using mathematical proportions, 00:23:21.609 --> 00:23:24.309 harmonic ratios, arithmetic, and geometric means, 00:23:24.549 --> 00:23:28.170 he literally views the cosmos as a crystallized 00:23:28.170 --> 00:23:31.529 mathematical construct. God geometrizes, as the 00:23:31.529 --> 00:23:33.789 saying goes. To Proclus, that was not a metaphor. 00:23:33.970 --> 00:23:36.859 It was the literal truth. So we have this incredible, 00:23:37.039 --> 00:23:40.680 almost paradoxical image of a man. He is a rigorous 00:23:40.680 --> 00:23:43.680 logician, a historian of science, a practitioner 00:23:43.680 --> 00:23:45.799 of ritual magic and the leader of the academy. 00:23:46.059 --> 00:23:48.539 He is fighting this desperate, brilliant battle 00:23:48.539 --> 00:23:51.859 to preserve the pagan tradition. And he loses. 00:23:51.960 --> 00:23:54.599 He loses. A few decades after he dies, the emperor 00:23:54.599 --> 00:23:56.819 Justinian officially closes the academy in Athens 00:23:56.819 --> 00:24:00.579 in 529 A .D. The doors are shut. Christianity 00:24:00.579 --> 00:24:02.559 takes over completely. And usually that is where 00:24:02.559 --> 00:24:04.599 the story ends, right? The loser of history is 00:24:04.599 --> 00:24:06.259 forgotten. Their books are burned or left to 00:24:06.259 --> 00:24:08.259 rot. That's what should have happened. But that 00:24:08.259 --> 00:24:10.880 is not what happened with Proclus. And this is 00:24:10.880 --> 00:24:13.339 the plot twist that makes this entire deep dive 00:24:13.339 --> 00:24:17.619 so wild. Proclus, in defeat, basically pulled 00:24:17.619 --> 00:24:20.500 off the greatest Trojan horse maneuver in the 00:24:20.500 --> 00:24:23.160 history of Western theology. It's the ultimate 00:24:23.160 --> 00:24:26.700 irony. His system was so good, so useful, so 00:24:26.700 --> 00:24:29.420 all -encompassing, that his enemies had no choice 00:24:29.420 --> 00:24:32.000 but to steal it. Okay, let's track exactly how 00:24:32.000 --> 00:24:34.000 this happened. You mentioned there were two main 00:24:34.000 --> 00:24:36.420 vectors, two smuggling routes for his ideas. 00:24:36.640 --> 00:24:39.059 The first one involves a fascinating case of 00:24:39.059 --> 00:24:43.099 stolen identity. Yes, the strange case of Pseudodionysius 00:24:43.099 --> 00:24:46.039 the Areopagite. Let's set the scene. Who is the 00:24:46.039 --> 00:24:49.039 real Dionysius the Areopagite? In the Bible and 00:24:49.039 --> 00:24:51.430 the Acts of the Apostles. St. Paul goes to Athens 00:24:51.430 --> 00:24:54.069 to preach. He gives his famous sermon on the 00:24:54.069 --> 00:24:57.230 Areopagus, the hill of Ares. Most of the sophisticated 00:24:57.230 --> 00:24:59.490 Athenian philosophers there laugh at him, but 00:24:59.490 --> 00:25:01.970 one of them, a judge named Dionysius, converts 00:25:01.970 --> 00:25:04.529 to Christianity. Okay, so he's a first century 00:25:04.529 --> 00:25:06.910 Christian, a direct convert of St. Paul himself. 00:25:07.029 --> 00:25:09.390 In terms of authority, that is as good as it 00:25:09.390 --> 00:25:11.730 gets. Apostolic authority. The highest level. 00:25:12.289 --> 00:25:15.849 Now, fast forward to the late 5th or early 6th 00:25:15.849 --> 00:25:18.029 century. This is just a generation or so after 00:25:18.029 --> 00:25:21.200 Proclus dies. A mysterious collection of theological 00:25:21.200 --> 00:25:24.519 writings appears in Syria. The author claims 00:25:24.519 --> 00:25:27.019 to be that very same Dionysius. But it wasn't 00:25:27.019 --> 00:25:30.220 him. Not a chance. Modern philology and historical 00:25:30.220 --> 00:25:33.019 analysis have proven beyond any doubt that this 00:25:33.019 --> 00:25:35.440 author was writing much, much later. We have 00:25:35.440 --> 00:25:37.460 no idea who he really was, so we call him Pseudo 00:25:37.460 --> 00:25:40.380 -Dionysius. But here's the kicker. When you actually 00:25:40.380 --> 00:25:43.539 read his books, works like The Divine Names or 00:25:43.539 --> 00:25:46.299 The Celestial Hierarchy, the philosophical system 00:25:46.299 --> 00:25:49.309 inside them is pure Proclus. So you're saying 00:25:49.309 --> 00:25:51.309 this anonymous Christian author took Proclus' 00:25:51.470 --> 00:25:54.210 entire metaphysical structure, the one, the emanations, 00:25:54.250 --> 00:25:56.930 the triads, the return, and just pasted Christian 00:25:56.930 --> 00:25:59.430 labels on top of it. Essentially, yes. Proclus' 00:25:59.549 --> 00:26:02.069 one becomes the Christian God, the Father. Proclus' 00:26:02.150 --> 00:26:04.490 complex hierarchy of henads and divine beings 00:26:04.490 --> 00:26:07.769 becomes the angelic hierarchy, seraphim, cherubim, 00:26:07.849 --> 00:26:10.430 thrones, dominions, and so on. The famous method 00:26:10.430 --> 00:26:12.589 of negative theology, approaching God by saying 00:26:12.589 --> 00:26:14.609 what he is not, is lifted straight from Proclus 00:26:14.609 --> 00:26:16.869 and Plotinus. But because everyone in the medieval 00:26:16.869 --> 00:26:19.470 world thought this author was the actual disciple 00:26:19.470 --> 00:26:22.630 of St. Paul. They treated his writings with the 00:26:22.630 --> 00:26:25.490 reverence of scripture. For a thousand years, 00:26:25.670 --> 00:26:28.670 medieval monks, theologians like Thomas Aquinas, 00:26:28.930 --> 00:26:31.849 mystics like Meister Eckhart, they all studied 00:26:31.849 --> 00:26:33.930 these texts thinking they were learning the secret 00:26:33.930 --> 00:26:37.180 wisdom of the early church. In reality, they 00:26:37.180 --> 00:26:39.759 were absorbing the incredibly sophisticated system 00:26:39.759 --> 00:26:42.900 of the last great pagan philosopher of Athens. 00:26:43.119 --> 00:26:45.700 That's vector number one, the Trojan horse. Vector 00:26:45.700 --> 00:26:47.900 number two is almost more of a detective story. 00:26:48.119 --> 00:26:50.319 This one involves a book called the Liber de 00:26:50.319 --> 00:26:54.279 Causes. The Book of Causes, yes. This text surfaced 00:26:54.279 --> 00:26:56.619 in the Arabic world, probably in Baghdad, during 00:26:56.619 --> 00:26:59.539 the Islamic Golden Age. It's a brilliant, concise 00:26:59.539 --> 00:27:03.500 summary of Neoplatonic metaphysics. 32 propositions. 00:27:03.680 --> 00:27:05.690 And who did the Islamic and Liber? the Christian 00:27:05.690 --> 00:27:07.930 scholars think wrote it. Aristotle. Aristotle. 00:27:08.269 --> 00:27:10.789 But Aristotle's philosophy is so different from 00:27:10.789 --> 00:27:13.690 Proclus's. Aristotle is the bottom -up guy, the 00:27:13.690 --> 00:27:15.609 biologist, the one who categorizes things in 00:27:15.609 --> 00:27:18.170 the real world. He's not usually the mystical 00:27:18.170 --> 00:27:21.309 emanation from a transcendent one guy. Not at 00:27:21.309 --> 00:27:23.630 all. It's a terrible misattribution. Yeah. But 00:27:23.630 --> 00:27:26.460 for whatever reason, it's stuck. The Leverde 00:27:26.460 --> 00:27:29.079 Causes was translated from Arabic into Latin 00:27:29.079 --> 00:27:31.880 in the 12th century, and it exploded in popularity. 00:27:32.160 --> 00:27:34.599 It became a standard textbook in the new universities 00:27:34.599 --> 00:27:37.400 of Paris and Oxford. So you have these brilliant 00:27:37.400 --> 00:27:40.660 scholastic thinkers in the 1200s, guys like Albert 00:27:40.660 --> 00:27:42.720 the Great, studying this book, thinking, ah, 00:27:42.900 --> 00:27:45.859 at last, this is Aristotle's secret book on metaphysics. 00:27:46.000 --> 00:27:48.839 This explains how God relates to the world. But 00:27:48.839 --> 00:27:51.000 they're actually reading a summary of Proclus' 00:27:51.180 --> 00:27:54.339 Elements of Theology. Exactly. Proclus was shaping 00:27:54.339 --> 00:27:56.809 the minds. of the high middle ages, completely 00:27:56.809 --> 00:27:59.569 incognito, under the name of his greatest philosophical 00:27:59.569 --> 00:28:02.170 rival. So when did the mask finally pulled off? 00:28:02.250 --> 00:28:04.349 How did they figure it out? Well, it wasn't until 00:28:04.349 --> 00:28:06.509 the greatest mind of the age, Thomas Aquinas, 00:28:06.589 --> 00:28:09.210 got involved. Aquinas was incredibly sharp, a 00:28:09.210 --> 00:28:12.480 brilliant... textual scholar. And he had a friend, 00:28:12.579 --> 00:28:15.119 a Flemish translator named William of Morbake, 00:28:15.319 --> 00:28:17.640 who was one of the few people in Europe who could 00:28:17.640 --> 00:28:20.500 translate Greek texts directly into Latin without 00:28:20.500 --> 00:28:22.740 going through Arabic first. And Aquinas asked 00:28:22.740 --> 00:28:25.119 William to translate Proclus' actual elements 00:28:25.119 --> 00:28:28.420 of theology. So for the first time, a Western 00:28:28.420 --> 00:28:31.240 scholar had both books in front of him. He has 00:28:31.240 --> 00:28:33.380 the Libra de Causas, which everyone says is by 00:28:33.380 --> 00:28:35.900 Aristotle, in one hand. And the real elements 00:28:35.900 --> 00:28:38.059 of theology by Proclus in the other. And he sits 00:28:38.059 --> 00:28:40.549 down and he compares them. And he realizes, wait 00:28:40.549 --> 00:28:43.390 a minute, the Book of Causes is just a series 00:28:43.390 --> 00:28:47.269 of excerpts and paraphrases from Proclus. He 00:28:47.269 --> 00:28:49.730 was one of the very first to expose the misattribution 00:28:49.730 --> 00:28:52.529 in his commentary. That is an incredible moment 00:28:52.529 --> 00:28:55.369 of detective work and scholarship for the 13th 00:28:55.369 --> 00:28:58.390 century. It's a landmark. But by then, in a way, 00:28:58.490 --> 00:29:01.109 the damage was done, or rather, the influence 00:29:01.109 --> 00:29:04.170 was already baked in. And Aquinas himself, even 00:29:04.170 --> 00:29:06.430 after discovering the truth, had immense respect 00:29:06.430 --> 00:29:09.099 for Proclus. He quotes him hundreds of times 00:29:09.099 --> 00:29:11.720 and uses his concepts to explain the nature of 00:29:11.720 --> 00:29:14.099 angels and the relationship between God and the 00:29:14.099 --> 00:29:16.279 created world. And this influence didn't just 00:29:16.279 --> 00:29:18.180 stop with the Middle Ages. The Renaissance thinkers, 00:29:18.299 --> 00:29:20.039 they loved him too, right? They were obsessed 00:29:20.039 --> 00:29:23.039 with him. Figures like Marsilio Ficino, who ran 00:29:23.039 --> 00:29:25.539 the Platonic Academy in Florence, and Piccadillo 00:29:25.539 --> 00:29:29.609 Mirandola, they saw Proclus as the key. The one 00:29:29.609 --> 00:29:32.109 who had synthesized all ancient wisdom, Platonic, 00:29:32.130 --> 00:29:36.089 Orphic, Egyptian into one coherent system. He 00:29:36.089 --> 00:29:38.670 was the master synthesizer. And we can't forget 00:29:38.670 --> 00:29:41.950 Boethius. No, absolutely not. Boethius writing 00:29:41.950 --> 00:29:44.269 his Consolation of Philosophy while awaiting 00:29:44.269 --> 00:29:47.730 execution. That book was arguably the most popular 00:29:47.730 --> 00:29:49.990 and influential book in Europe for 500 years. 00:29:50.250 --> 00:29:54.539 But everyone read it. Kings. Monks? Poets? And 00:29:54.539 --> 00:29:56.779 in that book, Boethius lays down this profound 00:29:56.779 --> 00:29:58.859 philosophical principle that comes straight from 00:29:58.859 --> 00:30:03.680 Proclus. He says, and I'm paraphrasing, Okay, 00:30:06.000 --> 00:30:07.660 let's unpack that. That sounds almost like modern 00:30:07.660 --> 00:30:10.759 psychology or even quantum physics. It's incredibly 00:30:10.759 --> 00:30:13.380 profound. It means that reality looks different 00:30:13.380 --> 00:30:16.440 depending on who or what is looking at it. A 00:30:16.440 --> 00:30:18.960 plant experiences the world through simple sensation. 00:30:19.599 --> 00:30:22.769 An animal through instinct and imagination. A 00:30:22.769 --> 00:30:26.069 human through reason. An angel or a god sees 00:30:26.069 --> 00:30:29.250 all of time as a single, eternal now. We see 00:30:29.250 --> 00:30:31.869 it as past, present, and future. The limitation 00:30:31.869 --> 00:30:34.069 isn't in reality itself. It's in the capacity 00:30:34.069 --> 00:30:36.910 of the viewer. That's a Proclan insight. It's 00:30:36.910 --> 00:30:38.690 pure Proclus concerning the different levels 00:30:38.690 --> 00:30:40.150 of knowledge that correspond to the different 00:30:40.150 --> 00:30:43.430 levels of being. Sense, opinion, discursive reason, 00:30:43.529 --> 00:30:45.309 and pure intellect. So if we just look at the 00:30:45.309 --> 00:30:48.900 scorecard here, Christian mysticism. deeply influenced 00:30:48.900 --> 00:30:51.640 by Proclus, Islamic philosophy, deeply influenced 00:30:51.640 --> 00:30:53.940 by Proclus, Renaissance humanism, influenced 00:30:53.940 --> 00:30:55.980 by Proclus, and then it just keeps going all 00:30:55.980 --> 00:30:58.819 the way to German idealism. Hegel loved him. 00:30:59.200 --> 00:31:01.700 Hegel explicitly credited Proclus with providing 00:31:01.700 --> 00:31:04.240 the blueprint for his own dialectic method, that 00:31:04.240 --> 00:31:06.680 famous triad of thesis, antithesis, synthesis. 00:31:07.099 --> 00:31:09.339 For Proclus, this was the metastasical rhythm 00:31:09.339 --> 00:31:11.839 of the universe. Everything is defined by the 00:31:11.839 --> 00:31:13.799 movement of remaining in its cause, proceeding 00:31:13.799 --> 00:31:15.960 out from its cause, and returning to its cause. 00:31:16.140 --> 00:31:19.480 So a concept stays in itself, goes out into its 00:31:19.480 --> 00:31:22.579 opposite, and then returns to itself. but enriched. 00:31:22.900 --> 00:31:25.599 That is the engine of Hegel's entire philosophy. 00:31:25.880 --> 00:31:28.440 And he freely admitted he got the blueprint from 00:31:28.440 --> 00:31:31.000 Proclus. It is absolutely staggering. This man 00:31:31.000 --> 00:31:34.140 who spent his entire life defending a dead religion 00:31:34.140 --> 00:31:37.579 actually ended up providing the invisible skeletal 00:31:37.579 --> 00:31:40.039 structure for the next 1500 years of Western 00:31:40.039 --> 00:31:42.819 thought. He built a container, a philosophical 00:31:42.819 --> 00:31:46.019 and theological container that was so elegant, 00:31:46.119 --> 00:31:48.859 so logical, so perfect that everyone who came 00:31:48.859 --> 00:31:50.779 after him wanted to pour their own wine into 00:31:50.779 --> 00:31:53.000 it. As we wrap this up, I want to go back to 00:31:53.000 --> 00:31:55.140 that central image of the system. We've talked 00:31:55.140 --> 00:31:57.400 about chains and triads and hierarchies, and 00:31:57.400 --> 00:32:00.480 it can all feel very, very abstract. But I think 00:32:00.480 --> 00:32:03.079 there's a very human, almost emotional drive 00:32:03.079 --> 00:32:05.759 behind it all. I completely agree. You have to 00:32:05.759 --> 00:32:07.710 remember the world Proclus lived in. It was a 00:32:07.710 --> 00:32:10.029 time of intense fragmentation. The Roman Empire 00:32:10.029 --> 00:32:12.509 was falling apart. Old religious certainties 00:32:12.509 --> 00:32:14.630 were dying. There was a deep sense of anxiety 00:32:14.630 --> 00:32:17.250 and dislocation. Sounds a little familiar. It 00:32:17.250 --> 00:32:19.690 does, doesn't it? And Proclus' response to that 00:32:19.690 --> 00:32:22.730 chaos wasn't to retreat into skepticism or despair. 00:32:23.170 --> 00:32:26.910 His response was to connect. His entire life's 00:32:26.910 --> 00:32:29.410 work was an attempt to show that the flower in 00:32:29.410 --> 00:32:31.109 the garden and the theorem on the page and the 00:32:31.109 --> 00:32:33.650 ritual in the temple and the highest, most abstract 00:32:33.650 --> 00:32:37.130 thought, they were all part of one unified story. 00:32:37.390 --> 00:32:40.890 A unified field theory of everything. Yes. He 00:32:40.890 --> 00:32:42.970 refused to let the world be broken into disconnected 00:32:42.970 --> 00:32:46.549 pieces. He insisted with every fiber of his being 00:32:46.549 --> 00:32:49.259 that if you look deep enough, With enough rigorous 00:32:49.259 --> 00:32:52.400 logic and enough focused devotion, you will find 00:32:52.400 --> 00:32:55.019 the golden thread that ties everything back to 00:32:55.019 --> 00:32:57.240 the one. It's a beautiful vision. If you look 00:32:57.240 --> 00:32:59.440 at a lunar map or if you have a really, really 00:32:59.440 --> 00:33:02.200 good telescope, you can see a crater on the moon 00:33:02.200 --> 00:33:05.259 named Proclus. It's famous among astronomers 00:33:05.259 --> 00:33:07.000 because it's one of the brightest spots on the 00:33:07.000 --> 00:33:09.480 lunar surface. It has these very distinct bright 00:33:09.480 --> 00:33:11.720 rays coming out of it. That's fitting. He's still 00:33:11.720 --> 00:33:13.940 reflecting light after all this time. It is. 00:33:14.000 --> 00:33:15.859 So here is the thought I want to leave everyone 00:33:15.859 --> 00:33:18.819 with. We live in an age of hyper specialization, 00:33:19.059 --> 00:33:22.339 of fragmentation. Science often doesn't talk 00:33:22.339 --> 00:33:25.420 to religion. Art doesn't talk to data. We live 00:33:25.420 --> 00:33:28.059 in these little silos. Proclus challenges us 00:33:28.059 --> 00:33:30.759 to ask, what is the henod in your own life? What 00:33:30.759 --> 00:33:32.920 is the connecting principle, the unifying idea 00:33:32.920 --> 00:33:35.519 or value that ties your work, your beliefs, and 00:33:35.519 --> 00:33:38.160 your deepest experiences together into a coherent 00:33:38.160 --> 00:33:41.180 whole? It's a big question. Are we brave enough 00:33:41.180 --> 00:33:43.480 to even try to synthesize our world the way he 00:33:43.480 --> 00:33:45.940 did? Or are we just content living with the fragments? 00:33:46.180 --> 00:33:48.579 Find your chain. Follow it up. Thanks for diving 00:33:48.579 --> 00:33:50.099 deep with us. A pleasure, as always.